Devil's Sonata
by Hane no Zaia
Summary: HIATUS. Allen Walker is a pianist prodigy who has taken the world by storm. There's only one problem; he's very suicidal. Yullen, onesided TykiAllen. Contains moments of both angst and of a morbid sense of humor. Read at your own risk
1. Darkness Beneath

_And now I've started up the Devil's Sonata project as well. Anyways, have some patience with my other updates. I have a few tests and stuff to study for, but hey, I'll try to do something about it as soon as possible. Anyways, I haven't been doing great lately, in schoolwork and such. I have to do something about that I suppose. But now I have an English test to study for… Damn._

**_Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray – Man. _**

_Warning: this fic is rated M for things such as suicide attempts and maybe violence later (and later on an implied intimate relationship, who would've thought?)  
_

_Second warning: this fic contains humor. **Morbid** humor. Don't take offence._

**-o0o-**

**- Darkness Beneath -**

**-o0o-**

It was raining on that day, just like many other days before. But would it be the last or just one of many to come? Would it put an end to it all or was this just the beginning?

The boy standing a few feet away from the ledge was aiming to find out.

**-o0o-**

"_Mister Walker? Mister Walker? Do you have any comment on the rumors?"_

"_Mister Walker, a comment please? What is your opinion in this matter?"_

"_Tell me more about yourself Mister Walker. How was your childhood? Who was it who discovered your talent? Please, just a statement?"_

**-o0o-**

One step closer.

**-o0o-**

"_No comment."_

"_No comment."_

"_I'll have to ask you all to redirect further questions to my manager."_

**-o0o-**

Another.

**-o0o-**

_The man was staring at him with that same evil glint in his eyes as always, sneering at him._

"_This is… your lyrics?" the man asked, with mockery in his voice as he held up the papers on which he had previously written down the lyrics reflecting his very soul. "No good, this is no good. These lyrics can't be released to the public."_

_The white-haired child lowered his head, hiding his silver eyes beneath messy bangs._

"_Without the lyrics…" the child said quietly. "…that composition won't be Frozen Snow."_

_The man raised his hand, as if he was going to strike him._

**-o0o-**

Another.

Just one left.

**-o0o-**

_**Coldness creeping into my bones**_

_**As I wander all alone**_

_**Into the chilly winter night**_

_**Fighting the coldness with all my might**_

_**Not knowing where else to go**_

_**I trample upon the frozen snow**_

**-o0o-**

He was standing right by the ledge right now as a cold wind sent the snowflakes whirling around him, blending in with his messy white hair, sweeping their coldness against a thin red line running down the left part if his face, starting in what looked like an inverse five pointed star and ending in a line running all way down to his pale cheek.

No one had ever asked him about the scar; most probably assumed that it was a tattoo of some sort, and all people that knew the truth stayed silent or complimented him for his great taste.

He pulled off his white silk gloves and dropped them on the ground, since soon they would be of no use to him.

No one had ever asked about his gloves either; they probably saw it as a fashion statement or just something that had to do with his occupation as a professional musician. In fact, very few people knew about the abomination which was being concealed by the pureness of white silk.

His hand had always been that way, red, scaly, as if he had been badly burned.

He didn't remember how he got it, but he assumed that it had been involved with a great deal of pain. Not that pain had ever been such a great concern of his, at least not physical pain. Physical pain he could handle, but he wouldn't say that he enjoyed it, but psychological pain was a different thing. Psychological pain was the only real pain for him, and that was one of the reasons of why he had always distanced himself from the world, always closed himself off from the world.

After all, in the end… He was not a being meant for this world. He never was.

Musical wonder child they called him. Genius they said. But in the end, was that truly what he was? No… He was something else… Something darker.

**-o0o-**

_**My eyes looking somewhere afar**_

_**My heart aching of hidden scars**_

_**I wander deserted streets like a maze**_

_**As the cold winds are biting into my face**_

**-o0o-**

They were probably looking for him right now, running around desperately once they had realized that he had slipped out after the concert, running in the snow with his bare feet, dressed in only a pair of trousers, a white dress shirt and a long tailed black coat. He must've been quite an unusual sight to the world in the middle of the night in midwinter, but it wasn't like there was actually anyone looking.

He took the last step and was now barely standing upon solid ground as he was staring out at the dark waters underneath the bridge; supposedly luck was still with him as the water didn't seem to have frozen yet, since that sort of thing would've made his plans worthless.

He reached inside of his pockets and pulled out a folded paper; his suicide note. It wasn't one he had put much care into as he had written it; all that mattered to him was that no one would find it in time for them to stop him. He wanted to die, but he also wanted to die with style.

"_Always do it properly."_ Someone he knew once said. _"And if you're able to, do it with style."_

This was something he had been planning for long, but not something he had planned in every detail. It was just something that he did or at least tried to do whenever an opportunity presented itself, as well as something he had failed so far. But not this time, this time he had been one step ahead.

He unfolded the paper a bit for fun, reading the last few lines of his rather short letter, his one last message to this wretched world which he had been trying to escape every since that day.

"…Yours sincerely, Allen Walker." he whispered, refolding it and putting it back into his pocket before he shrugged off his coat and let it fall down to the ground as he took one deep breath before stepping out over the ledge, experiencing a brief moment of bliss as he was surrounded by the blistering cold and snowflakes.

He had always been looking forward to death, longing for it, wishing for it.

He was in love with Death and he had been like that for a long time, for the majority of his fifteen year old life. Ever since he had gotten his scar, death had always been occupying his mind. He had sought to end it, fought to end it, once and for all and with all his might.

Warm but rough fingers enclosed themselves around his skinny wrist, pulling at it, preventing him from falling. Most people would've seen whoever had grabbed him as a saving angel, but Allen viewed him as more of a devil, glaring down at him with dark and ice-cold blue eyes, seemingly accusing him for his actions. As he was pulled up and set down on solid ground he returned the glare with an accusation of his own, for saving his life.

As it appeared, Fate still refused to let him die.

Just like the raven-haired stranger who was currently holding his shoulders in a hard grip and screaming at him, but Allen could no longer hear his words, only see his lips moving. Allen looked up at him with a dull and bored look on his face, doing nothing as his coat was once again draped around his shoulders and someone led him towards a stopped car. The stranger opened one of the front door and half-pushed him into a seat before slamming the door shut and making his way to the driver's seat on the other side, muttering what seemed to be curses of some sort. Allen let his head fall to the side, leaning against the cold surface of the window, letting his eyelids fall shut.

He had failed another attempt.

He had no wish to stay awake to see it.

**-o0o-**


	2. Headaches

_Right. So far I've gotten 31 reviews on the first chapter. Uwa. That's like… A lot. Hopefully at least a few of those reviewers will stay around for a while as well. Anyways, I hit what I believe was a writer's block half-way through the upcoming chapter of Noah's Ark, so I decided to write this one instead… It's a bit short perhaps… But hopefully you'll enjoy it._

**-o0o-**

**- Headaches -**

**-o0o-**

_Nimble fingers danced over the piano keys, this time as many ones before. He had never once considered playing instruments fun, but as it seemed like his talent for it was undeniable. _

_Once he had been seated in front of any instrument it was like his fingers moved by themselves, by instinct, or under the control of something divine. _

_Allen himself however had never once considered his talent for music a gift of God, much rather a curse laid on him by the Devil; before it had been discovered that he was in fact a genius when it came to music he had led a happy life with his adoptive father up until the day when he had done what he had since long considered as forbidden… _

_He had touched the piano when he was at his uncle's house during his cousin's funeral, but it hadn't been by his own will, it was as if something had guided him there, led him to opening the lid and uncovering the white keys which seemed almost dazzling to his eyes. He started playing, his hands moving swiftly as if they had been playing the piano for a long time, creating a melody which he had never heard but which seemed to be the very essence of his soul…_

_A door was slammed opened and silver eyes widened as the child suddenly got a great desire to sink though the floor, to jump out the window or something as several pair of eyes directed themselves at him with looks that caused him to shiver._

_Thinking about it later, that must've been the start of the Hell that had been his life for the last five years or so…_

**-o0o-**

Allen sat up abruptly, taking a deep breath as he was finally sprung from nightmares replaying all the things he had sought to forget, all the things he had sought to put an end to. A blanket fell off him and he massaged his throbbing head for a few moments before sending a bleary look around the room.

_Wait…_

He blinked, looking around as a sense of awareness reminded itself in his hurting skull.

_Where is this?_

Pressing a hand towards his forehead he quickly ran through everything he currently remembered of the last three days or so in order to find the answer of why he was currently sitting on a bedpan in an unfamiliar room in what was likely an unfamiliar apartment belonging to an unfamiliar person.

_Right…_

After a bit of thought he drew a few conclusions about the current situation.

_One, I am currently in Japan, since I got here on a tour about three days ago._

_Two, after my grand concert I managed to slip past all my bodyguards/hindrances, run through the city of Kyoto in the snowy night until I found a bridge fitting to jump from._

_Three, I did not succeed since I was stopped by some screaming Japanese guy with long black hair, so that would likely mean that I'm at his apartment._

_Four, I'm hungry._

As in agreement to his thoughts his stomach growled. Allen sighed before looking up as he caught the scent of food. As his stomach continued demanding to be fed Allen finally noticed that he wasn't wearing his own clothes anymore, but a very oversized cardigan. Scratching his head while stifling a yawn Allen made the decision that since he had failed to take his own life last night he might as well eat something before he slipped into a coma or something due to low blood sugar, but on the other hand a coma in itself also sounded a bit tempting, since it was a state closer to death.

He got to his feet, wobbling a bit before stepping onto the floor, immediately suffocating a shriek as it was ice-cold. Shaking his head silently he soon spotted what seemed to be a pair of slippers lying on the threshold. He put them on before making his way towards the smell of food, since he would likely be able to get the answers to the rest of his questions, among them why the Hell said samurai lookalike had stopped him.

Samurai lookalike. Those words made him want to chuckle.

Allen had finally reached his destination as he entered a small kitchen and caught sight of said samurai lookalike standing by the stove with his back to him. This particular scene also proved to be surprisingly amusing on Allen's part as a silent voice whispered in his consciousness that adding an apron to said samurai lookalike would lead to him getting mistaken for a girl.

The samurai lookalike himself obviously didn't find this thought amusing, seeing that he turned his head, giving the white-haired teen in the doorway a cold look.

"About time you got up, Moyashi."

Allen's eyebrow twitched.

"Moyashi?"

"Humph" the samurai said before returning to his cooking.

Allen gave him a silent look as he continued standing in the doorway.

_Not the talkative type, are you?_

The Japanese gave him another scowl before asking him to sit down by the table, one of those small ones where one was sitting on pillows or on the floor. Allen did as he was asked and curiously studied every detail of the apartment; it wasn't entirely in the traditional style because of the lack of a tatami mat on the floor. He asked about it, not really expecting an answer from the scowling person by the stove.

"Because it would be a pain cleaning it," the raven-haired man answered simply as he turned off the stove. "Why are you interested?"

"No reason," Allen said flatly. "I'm just curious."

The man put down a plate of bacon and eggs in front of a surprised Allen and a bowl of tempura soba in front of himself. Picking out a two pairs of chopsticks he handed one of them to Allen while giving him an unreadable look.

"Was curiosity the same thing which made you seek to jump from that bridge last night?" he asked. "Allen Walker, pianist extraordinaire under the protective wings of the Millennium Earl, the executive producer of Noah Records…"

Allen smiled sadly at him.

"So you do know me then?" he said, poking in his food. "But then may I ask of the reason for the bacon and eggs-thing, mister…"

"Kanda," the other muttered. "And it is what you British people eat for breakfast, isn't it?"

Allen's eyebrow twitched slightly; this Kanda-person really wasn't a talkative one.

"No last name?" he asked.

"Kanda is my last name," the other replied with a grunt as he continued eating his soba.

"Your first name?" Allen tried.

"None of your damn business," Kanda replied with a hiss.

Allen's eyebrow twitched again, more this time.

"In that case…" he said dryly. "In what way does the fact that I tried to kill myself last night have anything to do with you, regardless of for what reasons I did it?"

Kanda gave him a truly unfriendly look before turning away. "It's Yu."

Allen looked up, seemingly surprised. "Yu?"

"But I hate it…" Kanda said, still looking away. "…So don't use it."

Now that the whole introduction and eating part was out of the way Allen decided that it seemed to be time to figure out the rest. Taking a deep breath he asked the fateful question.

"Can I have some aspirin?"

Right, so not an absolutely fateful question, but seriously his headache was killing him.

Kanda Yu tilted his head to the side before pointing in direction of the bathroom.

"The left cupboard door on the second shelf." he said. "Suit yourself."

**-o0o-**

_**Review? ^^**_


	3. Mirrors

_Here we go. Third chapter. Enjoy._

**-o0o-**

**- Mirrors -**

**-o0o-**

Since long he had been scared of mirrors, scared of seeing his own pale face pale a bit more and his pupils dilating in pure shock. He had gotten used to seeing the shadow after a while, but even now to this very day it still succeeded in creeping him out.

The same shadow greeted him in the mirror as he shut himself inside the bathroom, locking the door behind him before leaning his back against it, taking a deep breath as if to calm himself.

His head was still hurting terribly, like he had been hit by a sledgehammer or something, but that was highly unlikely since he couldn't remember such an encounter. It was likely the malnourishment that had gotten a bit to his head, seeing that he besides the breakfast hadn't eaten anything since lunch yesterday.

His fingers felt a little cold as he reached for the cupboard door, pulling it open with a gentle tug as he then let go of it, he stood still, his eyes wide as he admired the great amount of small bottles, some filled with liquid, some with pills, all standing on the second shelf. Allen found himself reading the labels, frowning a bit at the information they gave him.

Sleeping pills, tranquillizers, chloroform, lozenges, a few syringes and lots of stuff he had never heard of and there, finally, he spotted a bottle with the label he had been looking for, namely the one labeled "_Aspirin_".

Allen felt an involuntary chill run down his spine as his eyes continued to wander across the great supply of medicine. With complete honesty, he had never seen this many pills before, at least not in the same place, ever.

_I wonder what the Hell he needs them for…_

On the other hand, to him it should've been a golden opportunity; it wasn't every day that he had the opportunity to get his hands on these many things which would be able to kill him. He sighed, picked down the bottle of aspirin and was about to shut the door to the cupboard but his hand trembled lightly. He bit his lip as his hand carefully reached for a bottle of sleeping pills. He was about to reach it as he was interrupted by a soft knock on the door, causing him to withdraw his hand almost immediately, as if he had been caught in the act.

"Moyashi," Kanda growled from the other side of the door. "Please stop trying to off yourself while you're in my house and hurry up."

Allen blinked and looked at the still locked door.

"Why?" he asked, his voice a mere whisper.

"Because we're leaving," Kanda said in the same unfriendly and sarcastic voice. "So get out of there and get dressed."

Allen looked at the door and then at the bottle of sleeping pills on the shelf, considering his options. Even if he did succeed in taking the pills the odds that they would give full effect was still low, since there was a great possibility that his body would reject them. If he didn't then there was a great possibility that he would be back at one of the Noah mansions in no time. He swallowed soundly. Then he noticed a razorblade on the shelf. It looked sharp.

"Moyashi," Kanda repeated from the other side of the door. "If you even touch that razorblade I'll break down this door and make you regret the day you were even born."

Allen's eyes immediately darted back to the door.

_Just how the Hell did he know what I was thinking? Is he…_

"I'm not psychic, Moyashi," Kanda said. "You're just terribly simpleminded."

Allen's eyebrow twitched and the razorblade was instantly forgotten. Simpleminded? Him?

Allen had always taken great pride in being virtually unpredictable in his actions, yet this man already seemed to have anticipated his every move. Who could he be?

_A professional stalker?_

Kanda drummed his fingers on the wall outside in an act of clear impatience.

"No Moyashi," he said with a clear sarcasm in his voice. "I have far better stuff to do on my free time than to stalk suicidal musicians. Now get the Hell out of there."

Finding himself cornered by a potentially psychic samurai lookalike Allen finally yielded, took two aspirin pills and drank some water before putting the bottle back on the shelf and shutting the cupboard door to it before he made his way to the door, unlocked it and opened it, only to be met at close range by Kanda's face as he was bending down a bit so that their eyes met at the same level. Upon closer look Allen finally, for the first time since their first brief encounter, realized that Kanda's eyes were dark blue and not black as he would normally expect.

"You're not entirely Japanese, are you?" Allen asked before he was able to stop himself.

Kanda's eyebrow twitched and his eyes narrowed.

"No shit Sherlock," he said. "I'm a half, but in the end, that should be none of your business."

Kanda started walking in the direction of the bedroom and Allen followed after a bit of hesitation, stopping on the threshold as he watched Kanda dig through a pile of clothes, pulling out a pair of trousers and a turtleneck sweater, both in black.

"Not a fan of colors, are you?" Allen said.

Kanda snorted.

"It's far less suspicious than to walk around in a tailor suit," he said. "And black is good for disappearing in the dark."

"… And bad when walking in the snow at daytime," Allen concluded as he drew a hand through his messy snow-white hair. "What are you going to do about the hair then, smartass?"

Kanda gave him another unfriendly look before opening a closet and picking out a black wig and throwing it at him.

"I would've liked to shave it off," he said. "But it's cold in winter."

Allen scowled at him for this particular remark, mumbling something about that Kanda was the one who needed a haircut as he pulled on the borrowed pieces of clothing, which were slightly too big for him since Kanda was taller and far more muscular than him, if his eye measurements were to be trusted. After getting dressed and putting the black wig onto his head Allen figured that he now only needed some jewelry in order for him to look like a Goth… or Emo, he wasn't completely sure about the real difference.

Apparently Kanda got a bit impatient, seeing that he pretty much pushed Allen in front of him until they reached the hall. Now they were seemingly faced with a new issue, the one in finding a pair of shoes that fit, since Allen himself had been barefoot, but Kanda made no big deal about it and pulled out a pair of sneakers from a box, likely an old pair of his.

After Allen got some shoes on and Kanda had pulled on a pair of boots, black, the same as most other things he wore, Kanda handed Allen a parka before he himself pulled on a long tailed coat in black leather and picking up a sheathed sword which had been hanging on the clothes hanger and attaching it to his belt.

Allen twitched an eyebrow.

_You really do like playing samurai don't you?_

"Not really," Kanda said with a snort. "I just have a lot of enemies."

Allen adjusted his wig a bit before pulling up the hood over his head.

_A bit paranoid, are we?_

"Not paranoid," Kanda replied with a shrug. "Just overly cautious."

Allen glanced at him.

_Exactly how did you do that?_

"I told you, didn't I?" Kanda said as he opened the door. "To me, your thinking is way too simple. It's like reading an open book to me."

Allen was not amused.

"Then please tell me where the Hell we're going?" he asked.

Kanda gave him a look before grabbing his wrist, pulling him out of the door and locking it behind him.

"Out." he said simply and refused to say more than that.

**-o0o-**

_Kurozaia: Thanks for all the_ **REVIEWS**_ so far but feel free to contribute with a few more… *evil giggle* But honestly, Kanda can read minds? What's his secret?_

_Zaia: … I think we're supposed to know that._

_Kurozaia: We are?_


	4. Keys

_I'm back again on this one as well… Enjoy!_

**-o0o-**

**- Keys -**

**-o0o-**

_A frail-looking person leaned back from the piano, leaning his head backwards as his eyes rested on the seemingly distressed child standing on the threshold._

"_Allen? What's wrong?" he asked with a voice harboring certain kindness, of a sort that this particular child was not used to at all._

_The five-year-old tried suffocating a sob, failing miserably._

"_Mana isn't here," he said, his voice being a mere whisper. "I can't find him anywhere."_

_The pianist heaved a soft sigh._

"_He's likely just talking to uncle," he said. "You can keep me company if you like."_

_The boy with messy white hair looked out with a surprised look in his silver-grey eyes._

"_Really?" he asked, as if he was uncertain of whether he had heard correctly._

_The pianist gave him what seemed to be an impatient look as he patted with one of his hands onto the stool standing by the piano, the same one he was sitting on. His other hand was still resting on the white keys, as if they were unable to stay away from them for long._

_As the child had finally been seated by him the pianist, who was merely a teenager with a sickly and pale exterior and dark hair which was just as messy as Allen's own, lay his other hand onto the keyboard and started pressing down the keys at a steady pace as the child watched and both of them listened to the sounds that it made as a lonely melody resonated within their hearts. It was as though they were both alike, both alone in this world. It was a melody of deep sadness but also of comfort, like it was telling the listeners that they were not alone in their grief, in their longing of their loved ones, in their longing of their lost ones._

_Then suddenly the teenager's fingers froze in their positions and he looked up, apparently startled over something. Then after a few moments he seemingly calmed down and carefully covered the keys with the lid before wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. One of his sleeves bared his wrist which was covered in red scars, old ones and new._

"_Mana is looking for you," the teen said._

_Allen got down from the bench and onto the floor while keeping a pair of wary eyes on the scars, which were once again hidden beneath the sleeve._

"_I would like to teach you how to play one day," the teen said with an absent smile on his face. "…So that you may one day have the keys to open up your own future with your own two hands."_

_The child stared at him in confusion._

"_Keys?" he asked, frowning a bit._

_The teen sighed as he crouched down, patting the white-haired child's snowy head._

"_I'm sorry," he said with a truly apologetic tone in his voice, as if he had hurt Allen in some way. "I was merely thinking out loud again… Just forget it."_

_The child gave him a slight pout which immediately changed into one of great sadness as he noticed the expression in the dark-haired teen's eyes._

"_Does that mean you've lost your own keys?" the child asked._

_The teen looked surprised for a moment but then he started chuckling._

_The Allen's expression turned back into a pout as he questioned what was so funny._

_The dark-haired teen didn't answer. He simply continued laughing out loud, seemingly to his heart's greatest extent before a shadow fell over the threshold to the room and the laughter died down in his throat as if it had never existed and his eyes grew incredibly cold as they turned in that direction. His face paled visibly as the man on the threshold spoke._

_From that moment, as he witnessed his cousin's apparent terror as he was faced with that man on the threshold Allen felt like he had reached some kind of understanding as to what the teen had been telling him._

**-o0o-**

They were sitting in a mostly empty train coupe on a train setting off to Osaka. An awkward silence lingered around them.

The raven-haired samurai was sitting with Mugen close hand and his eyes closed; by the looks of it he was likely meditating or something. Allen looked out of the window as the mostly modern city flashed past them with a bored expression upon his face; after all, even if he had previously tried asking to Kanda about a lot of things, for example why Kanda appeared to be able to read his mind and where the Hell they were heading at the moment. Of course they were heading to Osaka or its nearby regions; Allen wasn't stupid after all, but he much rather wanted a reason for this sudden trip than anything else at the moment.

The train passed through a small tunnel and Allen tilted his head to the side, catching a glimpse of his current reflection, nothing like his usual one, or maybe it was… Maybe it was just the black hair that was longer than his usual and covered even the scar on his face? Maybe it was the borrowed clothes that he was wearing, seeing that most of them were slightly too big for him? The gloves he wore were almost the exactly same type as his old ones; only the color was different, seeing that these were black when his usual ones were white.

In an act of boredom he picked out his mobile and opened it, silently wondering why he hadn't thrown it away yet since it would make him much easier to track down… He really hadn't planned for this sort of thing to occur, having his plans spoiled by Kanda and all… He had really thought that he would actually be winning this time; that he would actually be able to put an end to things this time, but apparently he hadn't expected an outsider to get in the way of his plans, the same outsider that he was currently riding this particular train with.

With all due honesty Allen could safely say that it was Kanda's existence that messed up all of his plans and if Kanda was truly able to read his mind, as Allen strongly suspected, he was likely going to be in the way of his future suicide attempts as well. Nonetheless, besides Kanda's interference there was another thing that had seriously surprised Allen and that was the fact that he hadn't woken up inside one of the Earl's mansions and that the train they were currently riding wasn't going in direction of any of such either.

So, to put things short, whoever Kanda was and whatever motives he held onto Allen was almost completely certain that he had to be involved in some kind of shady business of some sort… Mafia perhaps?

Maybe, in order to get away from this possible mindreading psychopath, he should call the police, telling them that he had gotten kidnapped or something… Now that would certainly be a credible excuse in the eyes of the public, since he, as a pianist prodigy among a lot else, did have quite a growing fan base and it was merely logic telling him that he would have at least one or two insane stalkers out somewhere…

Allen gave Kanda a swift look before once again turning his eyes to the lit up display of the phone.

Now… If Kanda truly was Yakuza AND a mind reader then he was likely going to be chopped up in neat little pieces of meat before he was even able to make the call… but on the other hand… if Kanda actually did chop him up into neat little pieces then Allen himself wouldn't have to bother with trying to off himself anymore and Kanda would also be put in prison for murder. Now that would make one great scenario.

Allen peeked at Kanda again, seeing that he was still meditating… or was he sleeping? It was pretty much impossible to tell. Allen shrugged his shoulders.

_Well, there is only one way to find out…_

Under tense silence Allen put the mobile away, got to his feet, gained his balance and walked up in front of Kanda's still figure. His gloved hands reached forward and grabbed onto the samurai's cheeks and pulled at them, stretching them slightly. Almost immediately one of Kanda's eyes cracked open and he glared at the white-haired teen in front of him.

"Moyashi… What the Hell do you think you're doing?"

Allen let go of Kanda's cheeks, wearing a pretty indifferent expression on his face.

"I was getting bored," he said.

Kanda took a hold of his shirt, pulling him back onto the seat.

"Boredom doesn't allow you to play with other people's faces, Moyashi."

Allen tilted his head to the side, once again looking out the window. Kanda gave him a look before he once again closed his eyes for some more sleeping/meditation but before he was able to he was instantly alerted by a buzzing sound. For a moment Allen's own heart grew ice-cold in a sense of realization, but in merely two seconds Kanda fished out a mobile of his own from his pocket, briefly glancing at the display before picking up and putting the phone to his ear.

"Yes I am still alive. Thanks for asking," Kanda said with the same bored look on his face as usual. "No I haven't. If you haven't got anything useful to say to me in the upcoming ten seconds then I'm hanging up."

Allen tilted his head so that he was lazily looking in Kanda's direction, searching for changes in his facial expression in order to get clues as to who Kanda was talking to… But on the other hand, why did it matter to him anyway?

"No you can't stop me," Kanda continued, starting to sound a bit more annoyed than usual. "I already told you; I do what I want. I honestly don't give a damn about what the old man says. I'm not going back. No. Just no. You should already know that I dropped out of school…"

Allen raised an eyebrow; finally some information on Kanda's mysterious identity… So apparently he was a dropout student of… University or something?

"Hey… Don't you dare lecture me…" Kanda continued, sounding a bit angry. "You dropped out of school long before I did and so on… And for that matter, I never even wanted to go to university and study art in the first place, so don't tell me what to do."

Allen watched with mild interest as a part of Kanda's obviously complicated family history started unraveling itself before him. Now that was an unexpected turn of events…

"I don't have time to speak to a soccer geek like you right now since I'm far busier with other far more important stuff so I'm hanging up now. Bye."

Allen blinked. Now that was one Hell of a way of dealing with family… not that Allen himself had much of a problem with it since he was never a family guy to begin with. Now he was expecting Kanda to once again put away his mobile phone, and not to simply press down a few buttons as he almost immediately called someone else. Allen gave the rest of the coupe a look where he almost instantly noticed a sign which meant that using mobile phones was prohibited. Now that was just… irony. Not that Kanda seemed bothered by the fact; Allen wasn't even completely sure whether he had noticed the sign or not.

As Kanda had seemingly finished dialing the number he once again put the phone to his ear. In the silence that followed Allen thought himself hearing the click of someone picking up at the other end soon followed by a suspicious voice.

"_Deak."_

Kanda tilted his head slightly.

"Hello Deak. Can I talk to Lavi?"

The voice on the other end instantly changed into an overly cheerful one.

"_Yu! I didn't think you'd ever call!"_

Allen could practically see the vein that popped up on Kanda's forehead.

"Call me that again and I'll be there very soon and cut out your tongue," the raven-haired samurai hissed.

"_Aw… You're coming to visit?"_ the voice on the other end laughed. _"You should've told me in advance… The house is quite messy… Anyways, when will you arrive? What's the special occasion?"_

The scowl on Kanda's face faded a bit.

"I'll be there in half an hour. I'll be bringing a friend," he said before hanging up.

Allen's eyebrow twitched.

_Since when am I your friend?_

**-o0o-**

_Kurozaia (laughing madly)_

_Zaia (sweatdrops at the sight of Kurozaia rolling around on the floor): What the Hell? *finds something* Oh… Now I get it… I suppose that giving Kurozaia __**ten**__ pieces of concentrated sugar wasn't such a good idea after all… She's pretty high right now… on sugar…_

_Kurozaia: I can fly, I can fly!_

_Zaia: Kurozaia! Don't try to jump off the desk! You might hurt yourself!_

_Kurozaia (falls into a pile on the floor): Ouch…_

_Zaia (turns to reader): Since Kurozaia is currently writhing in agony and laughing madly on the floor I suppose you should_ **REVIEW** _or something… Please make me feel like I didn't waste my life in writing this? Is it really too much to ask for? *puppy eyes while poking at you*_


	5. Reflections

_Another day. Another chapter. And we've been abducted by schoolwork. Please send some reviews in order to help us through this period of misery._

_Enjoy!_

**-o0o-**

**Reflections**

**-o0o-**

_Whenever you look in a mirror, who or what is it that is reflected back at you?_

_Is it you in there?_

_Or is it another you in there?_

_Or is it someone else?_

**-o0o-**

_His fingers continued dancing over the keys, for hours and hours. He even continued playing when his fingertips started bleeding and the white keys were getting stained in crimson. He was getting both tired and dizzy, but he still continued playing as if his life depended on it… Or was it to die? Was it all simply just to die? If he did continue playing like this he'd likely faint from blood loss within the next hour… That was unless…_

"_What the Hell do you think you're doing?"_

_He looked up, feeling a bit surprised as a person's face came into his vision; it was a bit blurry, but he could still make up who it belonged to as a pair of hands grabbed onto his wrists, forcing his fingers away from the keyboard._

"_I'm playing…" he said in a bored voice before a vile expression appeared on his face. "…Just like you told me to."_

_The other person slapped him, sending him to the floor. He made no attempt of getting up from there, but he was smiling, he was clearly smiling and his smile widened as the one responsible for the throbbing pain in his face backed a step at the sight._

_Then he tilted his head to the side as a drop of blood trickled down from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away, coloring his white sleeve with a single red stain as his eyes narrowed, glimmering darkly in the white room._

"_I'm playing… Just like you told me to." he repeated._

_Then the world titled and he fell into blackness, vaguely registering that someone was shaking him, shouting his name. Then there were sirens, loud sirens. He felt like he was floating, as if he was underwater. He cracked an eye open, noticing his own reflection near the surface._

_It was smiling. Smiling at him._

_No. That wasn't his reflection. No. It couldn't be._

_It was the Shadow._

_Then suddenly the surface was broken and something reached out for him, reached down for him. The hand caught onto him and cold fingers soon crept around his throat, fastening their grip, trying to crush his windpipes. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but not a sound came across his lips._

_The voices of the outside were swiftly echoing away._

"_We're losing him…"_

"_CPR! Do CPR!"_

"_It's no use. He's gone."_

**-o0o-**

Allen woke up feeling extremely disoriented. He cracked an eye open, noticing that they were still on the train and that he was leaning towards something solid and warm. Wait… Warm and solid? Isn't that… a body?

Both his eyes immediately snapped open and he looked up against his temporary pillow, which just happened to be…

Kanda's shoulder.

Allen immediately felt a chill run across his spine, silently wondering why the Hell he hadn't been cold bloodily murdered yet. Oh… Right… Kanda was likely far keener on keeping him alive for some currently unsaid reason than set on killing him right now…

When had he fallen asleep anyway?

"Since I assume that you're awake now I must request something…" Kanda said with a snort. "Would you please get your head off my shoulder? And also, we're getting off now."

**-o0o-**

The half-Chinese girl with long black hair held up in two pigtails took up the microphone and fired off a sweet smile to the audience. She waved at them.

"Hello, this is Lenalee Lee, former net idol and currently deemed a fashion icon in my work as a reporter for Stars of the Millennia…"

Cheers were heard from the audience in the studio.

Lenalee's violet eyes glittered in the spotlight as she turned to face her guest in the studio as she continued speaking in the microphone, lowering her voice a little bit.

"And tonight's guest is Tyki Mikk, or should I say Lord Tyki Mikk… I must just go ahead and thank you for granting us this rare kind of interview opportunity…"

Her guest, the Portuguese rock star commonly referred to as Lord Tyki Mikk, from Noah Records, fired off a smirk of his own in her direction, causing her to blush involuntarily. With an elegant gesture he drew a hand through his black hair, closing his golden eyes for a brief moment before he opened them again, letting them sparkle mysteriously in the light.

"The pleasure is all mine," he said with a purring tone to his voice, reminding most of a cat which had taken human shape in the form of the hottest musician/singer/actor/model around in this part of the world, namely the US and East Asia.

The newly formed cult that surrounded Tyki Mikk had a great concentration in Japan around the areas of Kyoto and Tokyo, so in a way it wasn't a wonder that Tyki Mikk finally appeared in person to greet his fans, even if most people under Noah Records were generally not appearing much in public besides at their concerts and at other instances connected to their work, which had generally made it hard for any proud paparazzi to sniff out anything on their private lives. The only thing they had gotten so far besides the official statements from the manager or the producer was that one paparazzo had actually, by chance of course, captured some rare footage about a certain implied affair which had been the start of a great scandal recently.

Lenalee leaned forward towards him as they both sat down in a couple of comfortable chairs, handing him a microphone of his own.

"My first question may be considered a bit straightforward… but what is the true reason of why you agreed to this interview?"

Tyki raised the microphone to his mouth and his smirk had faded a bit, showing him unusually serious.

"Even if I was truly eager to meet at least a few of my loyal fans face to face, indeed, I am also here for another reason…" he sighed.

There was a quiet sense of anticipation among the audience, as well as the reporter seated at his opposite, who tensed a bit as she raised the microphone.

"A few days ago there were reports of a great scale scandal regarding the supposed relationship between you and pianist extraordinaire Allen Walker…" she said, her voice barely steady as she almost shook from the immense tension that arose in the room. "Tell us Tyki Mikk… Are you gay?"

All eyes in the entire studio was directed at the one who received the question and the TV cameras that recorded this show was likely getting focused onto the face of this celebrity, as if they were all waiting eagerly for some kind of fluctuation, some kind of mistake on his part which would uncover a possibly sinister secret which would likely drive the ratings through the roof.

Tyki Mikk tilted his head to the side and a lightly amused chuckle rose from his throat.

"Gee, did you honestly believe I was some kind of pedophile or something?" he asked. "Allen is fifteen, fifteen. I'm 26 for God's sake. He's like a little brother to me."

There was a collective sigh of relief from the live audience, and likely another from the ones watching the show on TV. Only the reporter, namely Lenalee herself, looked mildly disappointed.

"So you and Allen are only like… siblings?" she asked.

Tyki nodded and his smirk once again shone through his earlier serious mask.

"In Noah Records we're like family," he said, chuckling briefly for a moment before looking serious again. "I sincerely ask the press not to fabricate such stories with questionable credibility in my honest concern for Allen's health…"

Lenalee frowned lightly at the last part of Tyki's latest statement before speaking up.

"Allen Walker is sick?"

"Unfortunately," Tyki said with a shrug and a smirk. "He is a bit sensitive to stress, so he's at the moment resting up in an undisclosed location."

Lenalee looked a bit disappointed again, an expression that she shared with many fan girls around the country. Then she looked at the time, feeling lightly distressed that the time was almost up. She only had time for one last question.

"Say, Tyki-sama…" she said, smiling sweetly at him. "Can you tell us anything about this rumored multimillion project that you're said to be involved in?"

Tyki looked up and smiled, revealing a row of perfect white teeth. Then he put up his index finger and placed it over his lips as he winked.

"That is classified."

A collective squeal of several fans was heard, both in the studio and around the country.

The next moment the program was ended and Tyki rose from his chair in an elegant move, waving at the audience before disappearing from the set, slipping backstage without much trouble.

"Was that good enough for a show, Earl?" he asked silently into his mobile phone as he had made his way out of the building and was about to enter the awaiting limo.

"Good work, Tyki-pon," a chuckling voice on the other end replied. "Your cooperation on this matter will be richly rewarded."

Tyki sat down inside the limo, dumping himself onto the backseat just as a stream of his fans had started appearing around the area. It was time to leave the scene before things got ugly.

"You still haven't found him?" he asked after a brief silence.

"We haven't been able to track him down yet," the voice answered with a clear discontent hidden within it. "But we're working on the problem."

Tyki remained silent for a while.

"I'm on my way back to the hotel. If you need my services any further I'll be drinking in my room," he said, hanging up.

Then he sighed heavily, leaning his head towards one of the dark toned windows of the car, watching his own reflection look back at him with an almost accusing glare.

There were a lot of things that the world didn't know about Tyki Mikk. Most knew that he was Portuguese, 26 years old and that his current weight was 70 kilograms and some hardcore fans even knew that his blood type was 0.

Few knew that behind his handsome and possibly sexy front was a great sadist hiding in the back, the same sadistic character that he showed in part of his acting. Behind his attractive façade lay something sinister, a darkness which had been hidden from the world for a long time, for so long that it had almost split his personality in two; one of light, one of darkness. But in the end, since he was one of the so called Noah it wasn't such a surprise that his sanity had taken a turn for the worse, since in his own opinion most of them were far more whacked out than he was, with Allen being an exception.

Allen wasn't as screwed up mentally as the rest, but he had the clear conviction that he should off himself as soon as possible, a deed which Tyki would've considered both a sin and a waste of talent. Tyki had officially claimed that he considered Allen as a little brother, but in reality his feelings was much more complicated than that. But he still knew well that Allen himself was cold to the world, cold and frail as ice. As Tyki saw himself as fire he sometimes referred to Allen as ice or snow, opposites that could never be combined.

His lips moved soundlessly.

"_Come to me for my need is dire, look at me and set my heart on fire, come closer now, my ultimate desire…"_

He stopped abruptly and smacked himself in the head.

"I seriously need a drink…"

…_And a casino since I'm getting a bit bored._

**-o0o-**

_Zaia: The story has started to unravel bit by bit, but we have yet to have seen the true depths of all of this…_

_Kurozaia: Drama queen…_

_Zaia: That aside, me and Kurozaia…_

_Kurozaia: Have both been abducted…_

_Zaia: By a load of schoolwork…_

_Kurozaia: With deadline on Monday…_

_Zaia: And so far…_

_Kurozaia: We've made no progress at all…_

_Zaia: But the updates may get a bit slow._

_Kurozaia: Sloooooooooow…_

_Zaia: Sloooooooow…_

_Kurozaia: And now I believe that you all know the cue…_

_Zaia: Please press the button below and _**REVIEW**_…_

_Kurozaia: Or else I'll come and bite you._


	6. Steps

_*Yawn* I'm so tired. I have school tomorrow. Enjoy._

**-o0o-**

**- Steps -**

**-o0o-**

_They say that the first step is the most important step on your journey, simply because it is at the very start if it… It is the hardest, since you need to make a great decision in order to do it. _

_To take the first step._

_The second step and the ones following that aren't that hard to take, as long as the first one has already been taken._

_Some even say that life itself is like a winding staircase leading upwards, but for each step you take and for each decision you make you move one step closer to a high fall…_

**-o0o-**

Allen looked up at Kanda who was currently several steps ahead of him in this giant staircase in stone, which almost seemed to be leading to some kind of temple or castle of some sort. Nonetheless, regardless of what were lying ahead and beyond this stair the stair itself was long, far too long.

"Hurry up," Kanda shouted from further up on the stairs. "We shouldn't keep them waiting."

Allen glared up at him for a moment before he turned his head briefly, glancing back at the direction they had come from. Sure, in that direction as well there were a lot of steps, but those ahead were almost twice as many.

How many more could he possibly take?

He was already getting a bit dizzy from the strain; he had never once been in a good physical condition, he had always been considered sickly and weak in everything but his determination… On second thought, scratch that last part; there was nothing wrong with his resolve but his mind was almost certainly screwed up.

His silver eyes lingered once more at the steps they had overcome so far.

He briefly wondered if falling from this kind of stair could kill him; make him break his neck? Cause a severe head trauma and send him into a coma? Not very likely, but certainly possible if he was very unlucky (or lucky depending on how you see it) and in case it was slippery… It wasn't though so that possibility was already ruled out. On second thought, why weren't the steps all icy and slippery? Now that was one Hell of a…

A hand was being waved in front of him and he flinched slightly, almost losing his balance once more. But immediately another hand steadied him as it was placed on his back.

"You okay?"

Now Allen was almost a hundred percent certain that he must he hallucinating again, since he thought he even heard a hint of concern in Kanda's voice. Allen carefully tried to imagine the face that could go with such a voice and he swiftly concluded that it would certainly be a sight for the Gods, but in case they were actually heading for a temple then it would certainly be. Simply the thought of it made him want to chuckle, but he was too tired.

"I'm fine…" he said with a snort as he shrugged the supporting hand off him and took another step forward, only to be hit by a killer migraine as his world tilted again and he once again lost his balance.

"Weakling…" Kanda muttered. "Do you want me to carry you or something, Princess?"

Allen swatted his hand away, swiftly moving up the stairs like nothing happened before he stopped again, looking back at Kanda. His silver eyes narrowed and his face had a really unfriendly expression.

"Don't. Ever. Call. Me. That. Again." he said.

_It makes me sick._

Kanda merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Whatever you say, Moyashi," he muttered before both of them started walking again.

**-o0o-**

_One step. Another. Like a man walking to his own execution. Slowly, slowly. But not too slow._

_He was tired. So tired._

_Tired of life. Tired of everything. Tired of walking down the stairs. Tired of walking up the stairs._

_He suddenly turned around, looking down it. He found that it was really far down to the second floor from the place where he was currently standing._

_By time it had become almost like a game to him._

"_**Look up or down, will I fall and drown, in an evening gown... Nope."**_

_He tried skipping to the next step, trying to lose his balance almost on purpose._

"_**Let's roll the dice, ultimate demise or even worse to come… Nope."**_

_He skipped another step._

"_**Will I smile or will I cry, will I live or will I die…Say."**_

_He lost his balance, falling backwards, but he was soon steadied by a pair of hands, so he tilted his head back so that he could see who had stood in his way. A pair of golden eyes frowned at him._

"_Please refrain from playing such dangerous games while I'm at home, would you?"_

_He smiled back at the person, his smiles had fooled many before, but the man behind him with the golden eyes was apparently aware that the smile meant something else. That person had also been the first one to actually figure out that he was actually playing, even if it was with his own life._

_The man with the golden eyes sighed._

"_Keep behaving like that and you'll never get out of here…"_

_In the end it was all the same to him, just a game._

**-o0o-**

"We're here."

Allen looked up at a small statue of Buddha in front of him before turning back to Kanda.

"This is it?"

Kanda tilted his head to the side.

"Wait," he said.

Allen raised an eyebrow, but his unspoken question was soon to be answered as a voice rang through the brief silence, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

"YUUUU! I've missed you!"

Kanda sighed heavily, obviously restraining himself from killing somebody, likely the redhead dressed in weird clothing, resembling those of a Shinto priest, who was heading their way at the moment.

"And here comes the idiot."

**-o0o-**

_Kurozaia: I feel like I have been awake for a very long time…_

_Zaia (looks at the clock): Nine hours is not a long time…_

_Kurozaia: I think it's the backlash to all that chocolate cake…_

_Zaia: First you get sugar high, then you get sugar low. Isn't that obvious?_

_Kurozaia: I forgot… Anyways, _**REVIEW**_ or something before I fall asleep or die of boredom…_


	7. Strokes

_Another chapter. Now I can watch my anime in peace… Enjoy._

**-o0o-**

**- Strokes -**

**-o0o-**

Dipping the brush into the paint the old man with ridiculous makeup made single stroke onto the previously empty piece of paper before him before he uttered something disapproving which couldn't be heard. Then he noticed some weird movement registered on the monitors a bit further away.

There were three people moving around, all caught on the secret cameras which the old man had installed earlier, in order to prevent stealing of sacred artifacts, but mostly because of his own paranoia since he knew very well that the past always had a tendency of coming back to haunt the ones who had already put it behind themselves in an attempt to forget it all, even if the old man himself was very well aware that the past was something inescapable.

He was feeling very content with seeing the raven-haired person dressed in black appear on the screen, wearing the same disgruntled facial expression as he always did whenever Lavi was around.

He put the brush aside and got to his feet.

"About time that rude brat showed his face around here again…"

**-o0o-**

As Lavi showed them the way through the _torii_ gate Allen carefully leant closer to Kanda.

"Is it just me or are you and him on really good terms?" he said.

Kanda's eyebrow twitched lightly.

"It's just you, Moyashi," he hissed in a low voice. "I hate his guts and I always have."

Lavi turned his head briefly as he was walking, firing off a gleeful smile in their direction.

"Are you sure?" Allen asked. "It doesn't seem like he knows that…"

Lavi turned around completely, stopping.

"Why don't you tell him how we met?" he asked, his smile fading a little.

Kanda snorted.

"I hate that kind of sentimental bullshit," he muttered.

Allen raised an eyebrow.

"Well, well…" Lavi said. "If Kanda ain't gonna tell then I will… with a few changes to my own benefit of course…"

"Fine," Kanda hissed. "I'll tell you the damn story…"

**-o0o-**

_Eight-year-old Lavi was sitting in the cemetery near the temple, alone as always, since he was to be considered as somewhat of an outcast to the other ones in the temple as well as to the rest of the world. He wasn't even completely sure about his own identity or where he even came from in the first place since there were no records on him whatsoever. No birth certificate. No birthday. No full name. Just Lavi._

_Sometimes he even found himself wondering whether he was actually a human or not. He didn't have any parents and no other relatives. It was almost as if he had dropped from the sky, out of nowhere._

_Seating himself onto a gravestone he continued watching the sky, as he had done for many days before._

_Why was he unable to see on his right eye? It seemed perfectly fine beneath the eye patch he had been wearing, but he still couldn't see. Why couldn't he? Was it a curse, just like people whispered? Was it a cause for them to despise him, just as they did?_

_He was like air to them. No. He was even less than air. He meant nothing. He didn't mean anything, not to anyone. No one understood him or even made an effort to do so. So what was the point of living anyway? Why exist when there was nothing to exist for? Why wait around forever when there was nothing and no one to wait for?_

"_I am not needed to anyone and no one would miss me if I were to disappear." he said. "No one understands me anyway. Maybe I should just put an end to it all…"_

_A noose was presented before him and Lavi looked up with a surprised expression as he came face to face with a raven-haired person just about his age who was in some kind of miniature warrior clothes and also wearing a sword at his hip which seemed to be way too big for him._

_He blinked, rubbing his eyes as he was still uncertain whether the person before him who was presenting a noose towards him actually existed and was not in any way just an illusion of his dazed mind._

_The raven-haired kid with the noose continued glaring at him with cold dark blue eyes that soon widened in shock as Lavi threw himself at him in an act of unbelievable happiness._

"_So you do understand me!" he shouted as they both fell to the ground._

"_Get the Hell off of me you BakaUsagi!" the other shouted from the ground._

_And from that day on Lavi made annoying Kanda into his main purpose in life…_

**-o0o-**

A bead of sweat ran down Allen's face as he gave Kanda an odd look.

"Is it somehow your purpose in life to interrupt people when they try to off themselves?"

Kanda snorted. "It isn't like I'm doing it on purpose."

Allen raised an eyebrow.

"It did seem awfully intentional to me," he said, his eyebrow twitching. "You ruined my best chance so far to escape from this pointless world, dragged me away from the bridge and into a car and then all of a sudden I wake up with a stranger and…"

"And what?" Lavi said, sounding truly curious. "Did he try to molest you or something?"

"He…"

Lavi leaned closer. "He?"

Allen swallowed. "He… cooked me bacon and eggs."

Lavi collapsed on the ground, laughing his ass off.

"He cooked for you?" he said in between his laughing. "Yu-chan can cook?"

"Of course I'm able to cook." Kanda said with an annoyed grunt. "You know I hate instant food."

Lavi once again collapsed into a fit of laughter but stopped abruptly as a strange buzzing sound.

Kanda immediately hauled out his phone, putting it against his ear.

"It's been a while, yes," he said. "Yes, it's Lavi's fault that we're taking so much time in getting there. Yes. Yes. No, I haven't. New assignment? Nah, I'm a bit busy at the moment. Can't you relay it onto someone else? No? Oh well, we'll talk further about the matter when we get there… My regards to you as well sir."

Allen gave Lavi a look. "Who is it?"

Lavi scratched his head.

"Panda-jiji." he said before swiftly adding. "Kanda's boss."

Allen raised an eyebrow. "Boss?"

Lavi looked slightly amused.

"He didn't tell you?" Lavi said with apparent glee in his voice. "Kanda's a…"

His voice was silenced as Kanda's gloved hand landed upon his red hair.

"Walk now, talk later." he growled, obviously feeling a bit impatient for some reason.

Allen gave Kanda a wondering look as they started walking again.

_Kanda's a what?_

**-o0o-**

Tyki leant backwards in the chair, staring at the emptied wineglass on the table in front of him. He was bored, especially since Allen hadn't been found yet. Come to think of it, what was the Earl doing? If the Earl actually was serious in finding Allen then he would've been found within hours, so what the Hell was the Earl waiting for? The project was about to start up and they were lacking an important piece of the puzzle… Not to mention the fact that Tyki himself might go crazy for real if the only person from their so called family who he was able to have a decent conversation with didn't return soon.

He got up from the chair and walked up to the window, looking out at the big city from high above; it was an excellent view, very unlike his first home before he signed a contract with the Earl and transferred into the Noah family. Back then, long before he was famous, he had been a lowly criminal specializing in gambling, but in the end, that was a long time ago and all his friends or partners in crime depending on how you see it was dead since a long time ago.

In the end Tyki, just like every other member of the unofficial Noah family, didn't have a life to go back to. What came before didn't matter, what came before didn't exist. That was a simple truth that all claimed they were clinging to and that, in the end, everybody denied. Tyki knew his own past but not much about the others'. The only person who knew everything worth knowing was, as usual, the Millennium Earl, and as always, he didn't let up anything except when it came to using it in order to blackmail someone.

Tyki tilted his head a bit as he continued watching the city below, watching those small pitiful humans walk down on the street like a never-ending current of ants. So seemingly easy to crush, so easy to kill… He leaned towards the big windows.

_This is really far up…_

He found himself smiling.

_Allen would've liked this place. It looks so easy to fall to your death…_

Tyki thought he might've discovered some kind of reason to Allen's suicidal behavior. All those taken into the Noah harbored a certain wish to create and destroy, mostly the latter. But while Tyki and other Noah dreamt of causing others pain and suffering Allen caused himself suffering in his conquest to put an end to his own existence.

Tyki sighed and his facial expression went serious again and his golden eyes watched what seemed to be a temple in the distance. Or was it a shrine? Apparently there was a difference between them in this country. Funny. Oh well, be it a Buddhist temple or a Shinto shrine, at least it was a cure to his boredom, not to mention the fact that he felt a sudden need to repent his past life sins.

He tilted his head a little bit, thinking it all over for a moment. Then he smirked, walked up to his drawer and pulled out a pair of ugly-looking glasses and put them onto his face, looked into a mirror for a moment before ruffling his own hair, letting it fall around his head in a messy fashion. He looked in the mirror again, smirking as he almost failed to recognize himself.

So, his disguise was good to go. Now he only needed a way to get out. He went for the window, looked out, judged the distance and went to the door, opening it and exiting the room. He wandered through the corridor to the elevator, pushed the button and entered. The elevator girl frowned lightly in his presence, as if she wondered whether he was an intruder on the hotel or not, but Tyki didn't care much as he started humming.

As they reached the first floor Tyki strolled outside of it, walked past the reception and out the front doors like he owned the place, which he technically didn't, but on the other hand, the Earl had rented a great portion of the hotel for the Noah to use at their own convenience, so in a way Tyki did have a technical right to walk around like he owned the place. But, looking the way he did at the moment, having adapted the _"clean shirt but still hobo" _look he probably didn't look much like the Tyki Mikk they had been expecting to see at all.

As Tyki exited from the hotel he walked past a couple of paparazzi that spared him one look before returning to look at the hotel with a silent kind of longing in their eyes, as if they would give almost anything to be in there digging up some dirt on Noah Records. Tyki smirked. There was certainly a great amount of dirt hidden under the carpets when it came to Noah Records, but it was hard as Hell to dig it all out and those who found out the forbidden secrets all disappeared off the face of the earth… due to perfectly explainable reasons that would have to go unnamed.

Readjusting the glasses he started walking in the direction of the temple he had seen before.

**-o0o-**

_**Omake…**_

**-o0o-**

A bead of sweat ran down Allen's face as he gave Kanda an odd look.

"I thought this was a Buddhist temple…" he said.

Kanda snorted.

"That was a Jizō statue, not a Buddha." he answered.

Allen raised an eyebrow.

"Who's Jizō?"

Kanda tilted his head to the side.

"Just some Bodhisattva said to protect children in Hell…"

"Right…"

**-o0o-**

_**Review? ^^**_


	8. Colors

_An update. OMG. Oh well. Now… Enjoy._

**-o0o-**

**- Colors -**

**-o0o-**

_**The world was an ever shifting, yet awfully predictable place. Shining, yet so very dull. It was colorful, yet so monochrome. If this world was one without colors then this world didn't deserve to be. He wouldn't belong in it, no matter what.**_

_**Dipping the brush into the paint he proceeded, covering the beautiful snow landscape in a coat of blackness as night fell upon it like an eternal veil.**_

**-o0o-**

"_It's no use. He's gone."_

_Then suddenly, like a miracle of some sort, the EKG which had flat lined a minute ago once again showed signs of life as the chest of the patience rose and fell and the oxygen mask which had been strapped onto his face was slightly misted by tiny ragged breaths._

"_He's back."_

"_Don't take things out in advance you idiot; check his pupils."_

_A pair of closed eyelids were pried opened as a sharp light checked whether the pupils would dilate or not, finding that they could._

_A silent spectator watched as the person who had been seemingly dead just a minute ago had been brought back to life for at least a bit longer by use of CPR and defibrillator. Indeed it might not have been a miracle of God but rather a miracle of modern medical science, but in the end it didn't matter which to the silent spectator as he sat silently on a small bench in the ambulance, desperately trying to calm his breathing._

_It was okay. He was still alive. It was okay._

_They were going to get him to the hospital. It was okay. It was okay._

_He was going to be fine. Everything would be okay._

_He spared one look at the patient's bandaged fingertips._

_Everything was going to be okay… He would never let him near the piano ever again._

_He looked up at the patient's face, as pale as death, but he was all too relieved that he was still breathing._

"_I'm sorry. You don't have to play. Just stay with me. You don't have to play."_

_The ambulance slowed down a bit until it finally stopped and its back doors were flung open and the patient was swiftly rolled out on a stretcher by several doctors and nurses all dressed in white, looking like angels to the tired spectator who slowly got to his feet and also made his way towards the entrance with the emergency waiting room as his goal._

_It was going to be okay. It was going to be okay._

_It had to the okay._

_The doors slammed shut to the operating room and it felt like his heart slammed into the rock bottom._

"_I'm so sorry…" he whispered in a barely audible voice._

**-o0o-**

_**There are times when sorry isn't enough, when apologizing doesn't matter…**_

**-o0o-**

Lavi guided them through the shrine complex, leading them to a sliding door which he opened, presenting them to a giant hall which was almost completely empty if one ignored the numerous paintings scattered around the floor as well as a few video monitors at one end if it... Portraits, landscapes, buildings, all types of pictures imaginable, all of them masterpieces from what it seemed.

At one end of the hall there was a man, an old man with his back to them as he was seemingly occupied with his latest masterpiece. Allen was almost startled when the man's voice echoed through the hall.

"It took you long enough to come around…" the man said. "Is it not a custom to visit your own boss once in a while?"

"I don't give a damn about customs…" Kanda hissed. "Just give me my next assignment already."

The man turned his head a bit; looking at them with a pair of eyes surrounded my way too much makeup. Allen had to stifle a chuckle, since he by now realized why Lavi had referred to the man as Panda-jiji, since the huge amount of makeup did make his appearance close to that of a panda. Then all of a sudden the man rose to his feet (which didn't make much of a difference since he was quite short), adjusted his robes and approached them before he stopped a few meters away and eyed Allen up and down with a light frown on his face.

"Allen Walker," he asked, putting his hand out towards him.

Allen took it with a clear amount of hesitation and shook it while silently wondering what the Hell was going on. The man's fingers felt like sandpaper, dry, old. But they were warm, at least compared to his own.

"You may call me Bookman…" the man said, still holding his hand, not loosening his grip one bit as if he was somehow expecting Allen to try to make a getaway. "I hope my subordinate hasn't given you too much trouble…"

Allen's eyebrow twitched.

"Besides preventing me to do something I've sought to do in a long time then no…" he said with a voice dripping with sarcasm. "Besides that I have no complaints whatsoever."

"He was about to jump off a bridge," Kanda cut off with a sour expression on his face.

Immediately Bookman's grip on his hand hardened and almost curious dark eyes peered into Allen's own silver ones.

"Are you not a bit too young to be worrying about not making it to your appointment with the afterlife?" he asked. "You, who still have time, might as well use your gifts in the best way possible… Otherwise it would be such a waste."

A dry finger lingered at his cheek, tracing down the thin red scar and Allen's posture grew incredibly stiff at the sudden closeness to the man before him. He pulled away his hand and took a step backwards, even if it caused a great pain in his wrist.

"My business in trying to end my life is my own…" Allen said as he turned around to leave. "You people don't know anything about me, so why would you even care whether I lived or died? Why does it matter to you?"

Bookman sighed and snapped his fingers.

"Lavi…" he said. "Can you please show our guest around? Kanda and I have to talk."

Lavi immediately complied, swiftly catching up with Allen, who obviously was feeling relieved about being able to leave the place, possibly getting as far away as possible from that creepy old man.

As Allen and Lavi had disappeared out of sight Kanda turned towards Bookman and gave him a swift bow before looking up again, the annoyance apparent in his eyes.

Bookman smirked.

"Humph…" he said. "It seems like you are as good as always when it comes to this sort of things. No wonder he looked so disappointed."

**-o0o-**

"So…" Allen said, stopping as soon as they had entered what looked like a very big cemetery. "Would you care to explain what the Hell is going on here?"

Lavi jumped up and sat himself down on top of a tombstone, still with his usual cheerful expression plastered onto his face.

"What is it that you would like to know?" he asked in an almost loving tone.

Allen sighed before taking a deep breath.

"One…" he said. "Who is that man?"

Lavi's legs were dangling slightly.

"Bookman, Panda-jiji, Kanda's boss and a fairly known painter…" he chirped. "Next question?"

Allen's eyebrow twitched slightly.

"Two… Why is Kanda constantly carrying that sword around?"

"Because he is paranoid and since it's a family heirloom. Next question?"

"Three… Why am I here?"

"Because Yu likes you."

Allen's eyebrow twitched again.

"Four… Why do you think Kanda likes me?"

"Because in case I tried jumping off a bridge then Yu would be pushing me off of it."

Allen's eyes narrowed.

_Why do I get the feeling you're clinically insane?_

"Because I am!"

Allen looked up. "Excuse me?"

Lavi's grin disappeared in an instant and was exchanged with an almost embarrassed look.

"Oh… I supposed I slipped a bit. Please do not mind me. I didn't say anything."

_Nope. Definitely not._

Allen frowned. "You people are really creepy."

A bead of sweat ran down Lavi's face. "Maybe we are..."

**-o0o-**

Kanda looked up.

"It wasn't the first time…" he said in a low voice. "He had multiple scars."

Bookman picked up his painting brush.

"I noticed…" he said. "But the shadow of Death is already hovering over him and it likely has been for a while. Have you managed to figure out why?"

Kanda scratched his head.

"Not really…" he said. "It was a coincidence that I actually ran into him and it isn't like I've had much time to dig anything up since he needs to be under constant watch. Not to mention the fact that Noah Records happens to have a great security when it comes to their members' pasts…"

Bookman dipped the brush into some black ink before he continued painting.

"So basically, there's no record whatsoever on him before he appeared as one of them?"

"Not that I can find."

"Erased of the face of the earth, eh?"

"It is the sort of thing which takes three things…" Kanda said. "Time, money and influence."

Bookman looked lightly amused. "How about the mafia?"

Kanda's eyes narrowed.

"So in short, that was the reason of why you wanted me to bring him here? In order to try to get information from him about the inside of the organization behind it all?" he said. "I don't know about what you're thinking, but that guy really doesn't strike me as one of the mafia."

"Perhaps he himself is not, but that the company itself is ruled by it," Bookman said. "After all, people usually don't go suicidal over anything; to me it is very possible that he must've seen or experienced something, possibly a trauma of some sort which might've triggered this kind of behavior..."

Kanda tilted his head to the side.

"As the supposedly retired boss of the biggest yakuza group in Kyoto I suppose you do in fact know at least a few ways in order to cause this, mainly since you might've used a few of them personally…" he said, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "Regardless, I never gave a damn about those things from the start, so just tell me about the next mission already."

Bookman chuckled.

"Is that really the right way to speak to the man who picked you off the streets and gave you the retribution you threw away your regular life for?" he asked. "For now I may be old and living under the disguise of a pacifist painter but beneath it all I am still as skilled as I was all those years ago… Regardless, I am far too used to your lack of manners and I appreciate honesty far more than people speaking in a divided tongue, so as always I am content with merely warning you…"

Kanda tilted his head to the other side, tapping impatiently with his foot onto the wooden floor. "The mission?"

Bookman looked at Kanda's feet. "How come you people never learn to properly remove your shoes before entering?"

Kanda's eyebrow twitched. "The mission?"

Bookman had a very thoughtful expression as he finished the painting before him with one last stroke of the brush.

"I would like a painting…" he said.

Kanda's eyebrow twitched. "A painting?"

"Yes… A painting," Bookman repeated as he pulled out what seemed to be a picture out of his sleeve and threw it at Kanda who caught it easily with his fingers. "I would like a red one, big, using that person's blood as paint."

Kanda eyed out the picture before him.

"Let me guess…" he said. "He severely insulted your hair at the last convention?"

"No," Bookman replied. "He is an informant to the police and has managed to get his hand onto a list which I would prefer would be destroyed as soon as possible so I want you to get this done as quickly as possible…"

Kanda pocketed the picture.

"What about Moyashi?" he asked.

"We'll see to that matter later…" Bookman said. "But for now I would prefer having you concentrate on…"

"Wait," Kanda interrupted, his eyes focused on one of the monitors. "It seems like we have company."

Bookman looked at the screen and a frown appeared on his face. "Indeed… It seems like we have…"

**-o0o-**

_Kurozaia: We've run out of homework._

_Zaia: Indeed… It seems like we have…_

_Kurozaia: Aren't we supposed to be celebrating or something?_

_Zaia: I suppose so, but we ran out of candy as well._

_Kurozaia: Why is it that I suddenly lost my will to live?_

_Zaia: Who knows…_

_Kurozaia: Now… My dear readers… I gave you like… 2 000 words. Give me a review. Now. The button is below._


	9. Bonds

_Tired… Tired… Tired… Out of candy… And I also had to edit this since it appears I screwed up a bit… But I guess that happens when you're basically sleeping when writing… As usual… Anyways, hopefully it's more correct this time around. Hopefully._

**-o0o-**

**- Bonds -**

**-o0o-**

"**Bonds are such fragile things…" he said, turning his back to him. "They take time to connect, yet they are broken in an instant."**

"**That is not true…" the other replied. "Bonds over time grow stronger, until they become unbreakable."**

**He tilted his head to the side, looking out at the dull landscape flashing by the train window.**

"**You are such an idealist…" he said. "What you describe is a pretty thing, but it's not reality..."**

**-o0o-**

"Right, the scene has been rigged! Time's up guys, get on stage now!" the director shouted over the anticipating cheer of the crowd.

The two main attractions, namely the two members of Jasdevi, looked up from the game of poker they had been entertaining themselves with. They got to their feet, picking up their gear after stretching some stiff limbs before they jogged out on stage, greeted by the audience with a great cheer. The one with black and spiky hair (not to mention the excessive makeup, but that applied to the both of them) grabbed onto the mike from the announcer and turned to the audience with his signature revolver raised to the night skies as it was an outdoor concert. He shot it and a rain of golden sparkles rained down from the skies at an even more fired up audience.

"People… Are you ready?" he half-shouted into the microphone.

The audience cheered, but Devitto still didn't seem satisfied with the response.

"I asked… Are you ready?" he shouted, answered by a louder cheer.

Apparently, this one left him satisfied as he picked up his guitar and walked up to where the other member, the one with long blond hair and some kind of weird antenna on his head, had seated himself at the drums.

"Jasdero… Let's roll!"

In response Jasdero slammed the cymbal, causing a brief silence before the actual song started. Devitto took off with his guitar riff, then ended it right in time to sing the first verses at a fast pace.

**-o0o-**

_No matter what you believed_

_To me you're so easily deceived_

_So utterly naïve_

_I can't take this anymore_

_For the hits you've taken_

_I sure hope you feel sore_

_Since I won't be protecting you anymore_

**-o0o-**

Various cheers was heard from the audience; this was after all the song they had debuted with, the most known of their songs and possibly the most favored one since they were pretty new in the business, but their fan base was already large enough to prove otherwise.

Devitto was known as another one of the Noah Records' miracles, the company taking in people totally unknown and turning them into superstars in no time.

**-o0o-**

_No matter what you say_

_Assuring me it's gonna be okay_

_No matter whether they're truths or lies_

_You may never look me in the eye_

_You ask what's wrong_

_But I know very well_

_That you're not strong enough_

_For the things I would tell_

**-o0o-**

Devitto pulled another riff and then lowered his voice to a mere whisper to the microphone, which made him sound almost seductive in a way, reminding the audience of the band's mentor of sorts, namely Tyki Mikk, whose celebrity status would soon go off the charts.

**-o0o-**

_Abandon or abandoned_

_To me it's all alike_

_Traitor or betrayed_

_Matters not to me_

_Since I just want to make sure_

_I'll be the last thing you'll ever see_

_Believe or disbelieve_

_Didn't matter from the start_

_You never listened anyway_

_To the sound of me breaking apart_

**-o0o-**

The cheer from the audience got louder as the music went on.

**-o0o-**

_No matter what you say_

_Assuring me it's gonna be okay_

_No matter whether they're truths or lies_

_You may never look me in the eye_

_You ask what's wrong_

_But I know very well_

_That you're not strong enough_

_For the things I would tell_

**-o0o-**

Lowering his voice yet again Devitto continued singing.

**-o0o-**

_Living or dead_

_All the things you said_

_Over and over_

_Running through my head_

_You may have realized_

_But it's far too late_

_Since it was the course of time_

_Which caused love to turn into hate_

**-o0o-**

Jasdero threw in a drum solo as Devitto out away his guitar, dropping it on the floor and advancing towards the audience, moving slowly across the stage.

**-o0o-**

_No matter what you say_

_Assuring me it's gonna be okay_

_No matter whether they're truths or lies_

_You may never look me in the eye_

_You ask what's wrong_

_But I know very well_

_That you're not strong enough_

_For the things I would tell_

**-o0o-**

Pulling out the gun again he aimed at the audience, as if he were challenging them, while Jasdero's drum solo continued.

**-o0o-**

_Friend or no friend_

_Matters not in the end_

_You only realized as I went to the door_

_That I am not your friend anymore_

**-o0o-**

Then he shot it, right on cue as the pyrotechnic effects went off and flooded the area with light.

The applause from the audience along with the cheering went extremely loud, possibly resulting in hearing damage for at least one or two spectators, but who cared about that, since the best had yet to come as Devitto picked up his guitar again as Jasdero started the beat as the grand finale was about to begin.

**-o0o-**

Allen gave Lavi a long stare, making the other seemingly uncomfortable.

"Why is it that you people seem to have this awful talent in reading my thoughts?" he asked.

A bead of sweat ran down Lavi's face and he carefully avoided the other's eyes.

"Um… I'll let you in on another secret if we don't talk about that?" Lavi suggested.

Allen's eyes narrowed.

"What kind of secret?" he asked, with a clear hint of suspicion in his voice.

Lavi looked innocent.

"Like about Kanda's weak spots and s…" he said, but was interrupted as a blade was suddenly getting dangerously close to his throat. "Oh, hello Kanda…-san?"

Kanda's eyes narrowed but he soon removed the sword and grabbed Allen by the wrist instead, pulling him closer.

"Our business is over here for now, Moyashi," he said. "We need to get going…"

Allen was far too surprised to even think about protesting, but as Kanda started dragging him away Lavi mouthed something in his direction.

_Yu-chan-is-__**ab-duc-ti-ng**__—you! ;-)_

A bead of sweat ran down Allen's face.

Indeed, Lavi was to be considered clinically insane.

**-o0o-**

Meanwhile, Tyki Mikk had made his way up an icy staircase and was right about to enter through the _torii_ gates when something caught his attention. A sound, fairly distant.

He looked around, trying to find the source of it, when an old man with an excessive amount of makeup around his eyes came walking from the opposite direction.

"May I ask your business in coming here?" the man asked in Japanese.

Tyki eyed him up and down, judging by the clothes that he had to be some kind of priest.

"What do you normally do in a temple?" he asked flatly in English.

"Shrine," the priest corrected him in English with a heavy Japanese accent. "Shrine, not temple."

Tyki tilted his head to the side, feeling the person in front of him; there was certainly something off, something twisted with this certain individual. Not to mention the fact that this priest guy had the smell of blood on him; it was faint and fairly old, but still there.

"Seeing that I am a foreigner isn't it quite normal for me to have such a misconception?" he asked, in Japanese this time with a thick English accent.

"True enough," the old man said in Japanese. "However, I must ask you your business in this shrine."

Tyki tilted his head to the other side.

"Well…" he said in English after a few moments of tense silence. "I was going to pray for my deceased comrades… Now however… I found myself regretting coming here in the first place…"

The priest's eyes narrowed as Tyki turned around, seemingly about to go back down again.

"Why do you speak with such a heavy accent when you can speak it perfectly?" he asked.

Tyki adjusted his disguise, namely his round glasses and took a step downwards.

"Why do you ask, since you do the same except opposite? But tell me, why does a person like you pretend to live such a humble and peaceful life?" he asked. "Not to mention…" he took another step downwards "…the fact that the blood on your hands hasn't dried yet."

"Is that so?" the priest asked, seemingly unfazed. "Then I believe you should be more worried about the blood on your own hands…"

Tyki's eyebrow twitched and he stopped descending the stairs. The darkness within him was moving again, as if the words themselves had awoken it.

_Not good._

He snickered.

"What blood, old man?" he asked in perfect Japanese, tilting his head slightly to the side. "I don't see any."

Then he continued down the stairs.

**-o0o-**

Bookman stood still, observing the stranger's figure as it grew more and more distant to him. He sighed, almost entirely of relief as he made his way back.

Lavi's head popped out from behind a tree nearby.

"What was that?" he asked.

Bookman whacked him on the head.

"That…" he said. "…should serve as a reminder for you not to try and give me a heart attack every time you come around."

"But what about the big inheritance?" Lavi whined, pressing a hand against his aching head.

"Shut up, stupid apprentice," Bookman muttered. "You'll get what's yours when I'm gone from this world, but until then, you should observe carefully and study…"

Lavi tilted his head to the side.

"But… what was that, really?" he asked, sounding honestly curious. "I thought there was something familiar about him…"

"Who knows?" Bookman muttered as he started walking again. "He's not from around here…"

Lavi ran after him.

"Hey… Aren't you going in the wrong direction?" he asked. "What about **that**?"

Bookman continued walking.

"He can take care of **that** matter later…" he said. "I have paintings to get back to."

Lavi trailed after him, putting his hands behind his head.

"Boring…" he said in a barely audible voice.

The comment resulted in getting another whack from Bookman. However, Lavi was very patient since he was waiting for the perfect opportunity. Not to off the old man, but to snatch his poetry collection and sell it for a fortune on eBay merely for the fun of it.

**-o0o-**

"**Bonds are frail…" he said. "…So easily broken."**

"**Maybe…" the other said, dangling with his legs. "But even fragile bonds can be cherished, can't they?"**

**He snorted.**

"**What do a person like you know about bonds?" he asked.**

**The other person jumped down, his feet connecting with the stone floor.**

"**Everything written about them in books and almost none of it in reality," he answered. "But you forget that you and I too share some kind of bond…"**

**He snorted again.**

"**And what is that?"**

**The other smiled.**

"**We met, did we not?" he said. "That means something must've tied us together and formed a bond between us…"**

**He tilted his head to the side.**

"**Don't give me any more of that String of Fate crap…" he hissed. "I've heard far enough about it already."**

"**Well…" the other said. "That's too bad since I happen to have read lots about it…"**

"**Shut up!" he growled. "Leave me alone!"**

"**If you claim that bonds are frail and easily broken… why do you still come back here every year? To his place…" the other asked, eyes glimmering. "Is it not because of some kind of bond that tied you two together?"**

"**Deak… Shut the Hell up!"**

**-o0o-**

_Kurozaia: I'm tired._

_Zaia: I know._

_Kurozaia: I want_ **reviews**.

_Zaia: I know._

_Kurozaia: I don't like you._

_Zaia: I know._

_Kurozaia: Tell me something I don't know?_

_Zaia: Is there such a thing?_

_Kurozaia: Well… maybe not?_

_Zaia: Just kidding. There are lots of things you don't know._

_Kurozaia: Like what?_

_Zaia: Like what's going to happen next._

_Kurozaia: … _**REVIEW**_… so that we can find out._


	10. Games

_The plot may be slow according to some, but at least I myself cannot call it very predictable. Even I'm interested in what's going to happen next._

_Enjoy._

**-o0o-**

**- Games -**

**-o0o-**

_It was all a game to him. _

_In order to end it, a Game Over was needed. _

_In order to get Game Over, one would have to die…_

**-o0o-**

Allen gave Kanda a questioning look as they were once again sitting on a train. "Where are we going?"

Kanda's eyebrow twitched noticeably. "Our destination is none of your concern. So shut the Hell up."

Looking out of the window Allen spotted how surprisingly a rural scenery flashed by.

"Say Kanda… Are you really…"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am kidnapping you", Kanda snapped. "So be a good hostage, be quiet and let me think in peace."

Allen's silver-gray eyes rested on Kanda for a few seconds. For some kind of odd reason the samurai wannabe didn't even look mildly intimidating anymore for him.

"He came, didn't he?" Allen said. "He came looking for me."

"I don't know what you're…"

"It's no use denying it of course…" Allen interrupted. "I know he came. I know he was there, but what is he to you?"

Kanda gave him a very unfriendly look before turning away, glaring holes at an empty seat further away. Allen continued looking at him with an almost bored expression.

"Were you jealous when you found out that I have another stalker?"

Kanda's eyes darted in his direction for a moment before he returned to glaring holes at the seats.

"You know…" Allen continued. "I might shut up in case you tell me where we're going…"

Kanda gave him another brief look.

"Tokyo", he answered as he got to his feet. "Now be good, stay here and watch my stuff."

Allen tilted his head to the side.

"Not taking your beloved sword with you?" he asked with hint of sarcasm.

"Not now. It would gather too much attention."

Allen raised an eyebrow at this statement, but before he was able to ask about it Kanda had already went into another train car and disappeared out of hearing range. Cursing softly Allen looked around the compartment, once again confirming that it was empty, which certainly was very interesting since he had expected them to be at least a little more crowded than this. Or maybe it was because the Japanese suddenly though flying was much more convenient than train rides, even when it came to speed trains like this one?

Regardless, the lack of people proved to be quite… uncomfortable. Sure, it was still better than the gawking and the "OMG-Can-I-Have-Your-Autograph" and all the stalking and all the fan letters and all that other shit he had been forced to live through lately. Not to mention this whole kidnapping plot he had unwillingly been made a part of. Nonetheless, it was, at the moment, still far better than simply calling the Earl (seeing that he still did have his mobile phone with him), so he might as well enjoy the ride while he could until the Noah came to drag him home again.

It was like a kind of game he supposed, as a matter of fact, it had always been like that. After all, it had always been a game which he didn't want to participate in from the start. Was it really that wrong to be wishing for a Game Over, to be wishing to put an end to it all? Well, apparently it was, since everybody stopped him from doing it.

This whole bridge incident with Kanda had been close, too close. Why did this stranger just have to pop out of nowhere, save him from his desired death and then drag him off on some grand adventure? It didn't make any sense. Why even bother? Why even…

Noticing Mugen on the seat next to him Allen felt oddly tempted, yet strangely disgusted with himself. He reached out towards it, but retracted his hand before even touching it.

A buzzing noise caught his attention and he fished out his phone, looking at the display. It was an unknown number. After a split decision Allen picked up and pressed the receiver against his hear.

"_Let's just stop with these games, young man…"_ a voice on the other end said. _"You can't run anymore."_

Allen blinked, thinking briefly before he replied. "Can't run from what?"

The voice chuckled, but the sound of it was unfamiliar. _"Your games, young one. The threads woven through time, dragging those around you into a net ultimately leading to despair…"_

Allen raised an eyebrow.

"Exactly who… am I talking to?" he asked.

The chuckling on the other end continued. _"I have been known by many names, but if you must then call me Deak."_

"One question, Deak." Allen said. "What do you want?"

… _Besides terrorizing me over the phone…_

"_My, my… Straightforward, are we?"_ Deak replied with clear amusement.

Allen sighed, growing slightly impatient.

"How did you get this number?" he asked.

"_That's two questions, Allen-chan."_

"Just answer…" Allen muttered before adding "Please" at the end of the sentence.

"_Fine then",_ the voice retorted, sounding more serious this time_. "How did I get this number? I didn't look it up in the phonebook, if that's what you're thinking, but as a matter of fact I did borrow your phone for a few seconds in case you didn't notice…"_

"And what is it that you want?" Allen asked, while silently wondering who had had the opportunity to snatch his phone and when it had happened and he swiftly drew a reasonable conclusion. "Lavi?"

The voice on the other end burst out in laughter, continuing for a good two or three minutes before Deak started coughing and cleared his throat.

"_I am sorry, but that guess is incorrect",_ he said in a cheerful and very strange voice. _"I am Deak, as I may remind you, not Lavi. Anyways, Kanda still isn't around?"_

Allen looked around the compartment before answering.

"Nope, he hasn't returned yet. And by the way of useful information, I'm not going to ask how the Hell you knew that. Just tell me what you want, okay?"

"Fine then", Deak snorted, sounding eerily much like Kanda. "I need to tell you something."

"About what?"

"About a lot of things…" Deak retorted. "Me, you, the Earl, your predecessor…"

Allen raised an eyebrow. "My what?"

**-o0o-**

_He had recently been released from the hospital and he immediately returned to the main house even if he had been advised not to. He immediately went upstairs and stepped into the room which he had been told was his, giving the white piano which stood in the middle a brief glance before his eyes returned to looking at the floor._

_There were no bloodstains. Someone had to have cleaned them up while he had been hospitalized. Someone had cleaned them up in order to hide the truth. The grim truth which was well hidden beneath the beautiful façade of this house, the darkness locked within. But to him it was not the house itself which should be considered evil, but rather its inhabitants… and the piano._

_To put things simple, to him the white piano was definitely evil, but it intrigued him nonetheless._

_He took a few steps forward in direction of it, almost finding himself wishing for someone to stop him, to grab him from behind and forcefully pull him away, but in the end the house was empty and there was no one there alive who would even think about stopping him as he carefully made his way to the piano, sat down beside it and lifted the lid, uncovering the white and black keys._

_They had been wiped as well, showing no proof that they had been splashed with crimson liquid merely a week ago._

_He hesitantly reached out towards it and his loose sleeves came up a bit, revealing several scars on his wrists, memories of the many times in which he himself had sought a way to end his suffering._

_One finger touched a key, then another._

**-o0o-**

**Omake…**

"Nope, he hasn't returned yet. And by the way of useful information, I'm not going to ask how the Hell you knew that. Just tell me what you want, okay?"

"Fine then", Deak snorted, sounding eerily much like Kanda. "I need to tell you something."

Allen's eyebrow twitched.

"What?"

The voice on the other end lowered to a mere whisper.

"This is a prank call."

**-o0o-**

_Kurozaia: Alas, it is the plot of the evil piano. Fear it. Now _**REVIEW**_ or I'll drop it on top of you._


	11. Cracks

_My throat hurts… and I'll be back in school in merely a few weeks. Yada ne…_

_Anyways… Enjoy!_

**-o0o-**

**- Cracks -**

**-o0o-**

**It was cracking, the carefully constructed mask that he had adorned his face with since that fateful day…**

**It was cracking, falling to pieces before his very eyes as he stared into the mirror, seeing what he had become…**

**It was cracking, uncovering the true face which lay beneath…**

**He had been backed into a corner, with no way out as the sound of that accursed music resonated within him…**

**The Devil's Sonata…**

**-o0o-**

_As soon as the piano's wicked but still stunning sound reached his ears and resonated within his heart and very soul he was already under its spell and unable to resist its temptations. Soon both his hands danced across the keyboard even if his fingers were still aching a bit, but as he continued playing the music gradually numbed his pain and senses in general._

_The music which he played was not his own; it had never once been his own and his truly. It was all a borrowed talent._

_He played the great masterpiece until its very end and when it had ended he still sat motionlessly, staring down at the keyboard with a dead expression in his eyes. In the end he had been nothing but a doll where someone else was holding the strings._

_He looked at his hands, as if he had never truly seen them before._

_These fingers which had been the sole reason for his so called greatness was never his to control, never his to play the piano with._

_The Shadow had merely been using him in order to be able to play. Surely the Shadow had been a true master when it came to music, but it was merely a puppet master as it was holding the strings attached to his limbs, making him dance at its convenience. And it had right to do so, since he had been the Shadow's from the very first time that his fingers touched the accursed white keys._

_In the end he was but a prisoner in his own body, in his own mind, free to control for the Shadow. In the end there was only one way out…_

**-o0o-**

The cell phone slid out of his stiff fingers and silver eyes widened slightly before sliding closed. The teen swayed a bit before slumping into the seat. A few seconds went by before the teen once again opened his eyes, looking around with a semi aware expression. He spotted the phone and picked it up, pressing it against his ear.

"What is it?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"_That depends…"_ the voice on the other end replied. _"Who am I currently speaking to?"_

"Allen."

"_Where did the other Allen go?"_

"He fell asleep…" Not-Allen replied. "Because you triggered something…"

"_Really?"_ Deak said in a flat voice. _"But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since the multiple personality disorder thing applies to both of us…"_

"Not really…" Not-Allen tilted his head to the side with a sigh. "You're just split while I actually possess the body of a teenage boy. Fascinating, is it not?"

"_Are you a ghost?"_ Deak asked with a great amount of curiosity.

A feral grin appeared on the white-haired teen's face as silver eyes glimmered briefly before closing.

"Who knows?"

**-o0o-**

Meanwhile, in another part of the train Kanda pulled on a pair of gloves before picking out a plastic bag he had carried inside of his leather jacket and unwrapped the small package within, uncovering a Walther PPK. He let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding and took it, making sure it was loaded and ready to go before he turned his head from his position behind the corner, making sure that there would be no excessive witnesses that he would need to off once he was finished. Kanda attached a silencer to the gun before he entered his unknowing target's compartment.

The target and his apparent bodyguards were on their feet pretty quickly, but Kanda took no chances and shot three very accurate bullets into their respective skulls. Their death had been swift, way swifter than they deserved. After all, in Kanda's opinion the Yakuza didn't deserve mercy, not from him and not from anyone else. Kanda knew their world after all; he had entered right into it the very moment he shot two men in cold blood. It had been the same night as Bookman had taken him in; since he felt that he could no longer face either Tiedoll or Daisya. It was that same night that he had dedicated his life in search of vengeance, training eagerly before plunging into the abyss and walking the path of carnage.

He calmly walked over the bodies, bent down and picked up the suitcase his target had been carrying. No locks. They were getting careless, not to mention ignorant. Kanda opened it and fished out a black envelope and a cell phone before closing it again. Then he lifted it from the seat, once again walking over the fallen bodies with an uncaring expression on his face. Then he placed it in the middle of the compartment, fully visible, before he opened a window and threw the gun out before exiting the compartment and making his way away from the scene of the crime.

Someone would find the bodies eventually, very soon according to his instincts, but even so this particular event would probably be written off by the police as a confrontation between gangs. The police force interfered very little when it came to internal affairs of the mafia, likely since most of the superior officers considered it to be the best. There would be an investigation, but Kanda knew well how to cover his tracks by now.

Still, there was one little precaution that needed to be made…

**-o0o-**

"**Say Kanda…"**

"**What is it?" was the hissed reply.**

"**Can I let you in on a little secret?"**

"**No."**

"**Why not?"**

"**Because I hate music."**

**He was laughing, from the bottom of his heart while Kanda gave him a very sour look, but he couldn't tell now, could he?**

"**One of these days Kanda, I hope that you too find it in you to come to one of my concerts… I send you tickets if you want…"**

"**No."**

**He looked mildly disappointed and a shadow cast itself across his gentle features.**

"**Are you sure you don't want to hear my secret?"**

"**I'm sure."**

"**But I would like you to meet somebody…"**

"**Who?" Kanda instantly questioned.**

"**An acquaintance of mine."**

**-o0o-**

_For every step that I've taken_

_For everything I have forsaken_

_For every beat that comes from my heart_

_For every hit I break apart_

_A path of carnage_

_Is all that's left for me_

_Since a destroyer_

_Is all I'll ever be_

**-o0o-**

"If a personality is subjected to too much strain it splits…" Deak said in an amused voice. "So… what's your excuse?"

**-o0o-**

_Kurozaia: …_

_Zaia: Do you even know where this story is going?_

_Kurozaia: … Maybe?_

_Zaia: What will happen in the next chapter?_

_Kurozaia: How the Hell am I supposed to know that?_

_Zaia: You're the author. You write this story._

_Kurozaia: Well that still doesn't prove anything… or does it? I don't know anymore… whether it's the cold I'm coming down with or the low blood sugar levels in my blood, I don't know._

_Zaia: Sugar addict._

_Kurozaia: As if you're any better…_

_Zaia: I never claimed to be._

_Kurozaia: *stares* Whatever you say. I'd like some _**REVIEW**_s. My threat about the evil piano remains. The box below is caaaaaaaaaallling for you._


	12. Voices

_Devil's Sonata is back... or so it appears. My internet however is not._

_Songs featured in this chapter are My Ultimate Desire, Keep on Screaming and Ace of Diamonds (all written by me, thank you very much)._

_Enjoy._

**-o0o-**

**- Voices -**

**-o0o-**

"What makes you think I have an excuse?" Not-Allen asked, equally amused as his eyes seemingly turned gold for a moment before reverting back into silver-gray. "What makes you think I'm not just doing this for my own entertainment because I have a really twisted sense of humor?"

There was a brief silence from the other end of the line before Deak spoke up again.

"_Entertainment __**does**__ count as an excuse," _he replied. _"But still, I can't help but be curious… You're not a ghost, are you?"_

A chuckle rose from Allen's throat and his body shook as if it was containing great amounts of laughter, like the question had been so utterly hilarious that it was impossible to stop laughing. The smirk which played on his pale lips was certainly a sinister one.

"Correct," Not-Allen chuckled. "I'm as much of a ghost as you are, young man…" he paused briefly and the smirk on his lips widened into an evil grin which would've made the Millennium Earl envious "I am…"

But before Not-Allen could finish the sentence Kanda had already entered the coupe, marched up to him, snatched the phone from him and hung up. Silver eyes flickered golden once more and all expression had faded from the white-haired teen's face as he locked eyes with an equally emotionless Kanda Yu. It was the latter that spoke up first.

"I honestly thought I had seen the last of you on that night all those years ago…" he hissed, snatching Mugen up from the seat, unsheathing it and pointing the blade at him. "I will ask you only once; leave his body right this moment."

The smirk returned to Not-Allen's face as his eyes gleamed and his facial expression darkened.

"Is that supposed to be a threat?" he asked with a chuckle. "You should know as well as I do that there's no sword out there that would be able to kill me… Killing my host will accomplish nothing as I will continue to exist, eternally!"

The white-haired teen (or rather, the one possessing him) didn't even look mildly surprised when he suddenly had the raven-haired samurai's fingers around his throat, causing the back of his head to collide with the window behind as the fingers applied pressure to his windpipes. His facial expression didn't change, but his pupils dilated slightly before shrinking back into their former size, small and pointed like those of a reptile or a cat.

"And exactly what is that supposed to accomplish?" he spoke calmly, even if his voice sounded a bit strained due to the conditions it was working under. "What are you…?" there was a muscle spasm and his left hand moved slightly, the fingers twitching as the palm had been impaled with a very familiar katana.

Not-Allen's eyes widened, but his scream came out as nothing more than a small croak with the rather restricted amount of oxygen he had currently access to. Then everything, slowly but certainly, started fading to black.

**-o0o-**

"Hello everyone!" the announcer, an overly cheerful Lenalee Lee shouted in the microphone. "It's the moment we've all been waiting for!"

The audience, several thousand by the looks of it, cheered loudly while clapping their hands and whistling, but everyone grew eerily silent as a certain Noah by the name of Tyki Mikk walked up on stage, dressed in a long billowing cloak. As he, without much of a care, grabbed onto the microphone a collective breath was taken as the audience waited in excitement on what was going to happen next, and which one of his songs, all of them hits, would be up first.

Tyki Mikk himself wasn't thinking much of the situation, as his brain was all too occupied with thinking of a certain someone that he hadn't seen in a while, as he snapped his fingers, signaling for the accompanying band to start playing. After the intro had played by he put the microphone closer to his lips at the same time as approximately three million fan girls watching his performance let out a collective sigh. Tyki himself couldn't care less; this was merely a job after all.

**-o0o-**

"_Come to me_

_For my need is dire_

_Look at me and set my heart on fire_

_Come closer now_

_My ultimate desire"_

**-o0o-**

The song in itself was terribly ironic though, seeing that the person he had been thinking about when he had written it wasn't there to hear it.

**-o0o-**

"_As soon as you go past me_

_I feel the heat_

_As soon as you take your steps_

_I feel the beat_

_As soon as you come around_

_I listen to your sound_

_As you go on and move your feet_

_Let's synchronize our heartbeats_

_Spin round and round_

_And look at me_

_Go with the sound_

_And I'll set you free"_

**-o0o-**

It had been one of his better songs, he would have to admit that much, but other than that it was meaningless without Allen around. Tyki assumed he would be sinking deeper into depression if Allen wasn't back soon.

**-o0o-**

"_Come to me_

_For my need is dire_

_Look at me_

_And set my heart on fire_

_Come closer now_

_My ultimate desire_

_I'll show you how_

_I'll set your heart on fire"_

**-o0o-**

Tyki held out his hand towards the audience, as if beckoning them to come closer before he slowly pulled the hand back towards himself and cradled it against his chest.

**-o0o-**

"_Take my hand_

_There's no need for suppression_

_Now understand_

_The cause of my obsession_

_Don't shake your head_

_Since you know it's true_

_Look at me instead_

_Since I can't live without you"_

**-o0o-**

Another collective sigh was heard from the audience, but as usual, Tyki didn't care.

**-o0o-**

"_Come to me_

_For my need is dire_

_Look at me_

_And set my heart on fire_

_Come closer now_

_My ultimate desire_

_I'll show you how_

_I set your heart on fire"_

**-o0o-**

Holding out his hand again, Tyki could've sworn there were at least a dozen spectators in the front row who seemed very eager to jump at him, but as usual he didn't care much, since if they did, the guards would just throw them back again.

Putting the microphone to his mouth again he started to sing the last of the lyrics.

**-o0o-**

"_Take my hand_

_And never let go_

_Whatever they tell you_

_You will always know_

_The cause of my obsession_

_The fire lit in me_

_My ultimate desire_

_Is for you to be with me"_

**-o0o-**

The applause was almost deafening; Tyki wished he had followed the advice of putting in earplugs when he had the chance. Still, there were other songs to be sung and he wasn't allowed to get off before he had sung them all.

_I'm definitely getting wasted tonight…_

At the promise of alcohol his darker self seemingly awakened and noticing this Tyki loosened his self-control a slight amount before he emptied the glass which was offered to him. Vodka. Finnish by the taste of it.

"Alright…" he said, sounding slightly husky as he turned back towards the audience. "Any requests?"

The audience started shouting requests, trying to drown each other's voices so that their own would be heard.

"Keep on Screaming!" someone close to the stage shouted.

Tyki smirked, giving a salute with his hand in affirmative before he went to fetch himself a bass – this song actually fitted very well along with his current mood, so he saw no reason as to why not when he put the microphone back in its stead. He stuck the cords a couple of times before he started playing for real and shortly afterwards he hissed the first round of lyrics into the microphone.

**-o0o-**

"_Look me in the eyes and say_

_Repeat what I told you_

_That those who defy me must pay_

_Very dearly_

_Say it very clearly_

_Say it and repeat it, as clearly as you could_

_We have an understanding_

_So it cannot be misunderstood"_

**-o0o-**

It was one of his darker creations, truly, but it still felt so right as he started on the refrain.

**-o0o-**

"_Keep on screaming_

_Keep on screaming_

_Don't silence that voice_

_As you're ripped limb from limb_

_There was never a choice_

_So make some noise_

_Make some noise_

_Clawing for the exit_

_Kicking at the door_

_It's locked and you know it_

_So don't struggle anymore"_

**-o0o-**

Exactly what Dark Tyki was thinking when he wrote this lyrics was pretty apparent, especially if the other person was a certain white-haired piano prodigy.

**-o0o-**

"_Just do as I suggested_

_And I just might let you go but why_

_I'm lying and you know it_

_But it doesn't hurt to try"_

**-o0o-**

Still, Tyki hadn't known that this song had become this damn popular in this short amount of time; he supposed he wasn't the only sadist present in the stadium tonight.

**-o0o-**

"_Keep on screaming_

_Keep on screaming_

_Don't silence that voice_

_As you're ripped limb from limb_

_There was never a choice_

_So make some noise_

_Make some noise_

_Clawing for the exit_

_Kicking at the door_

_It's locked and you know it_

_So don't struggle anymore"_

**-o0o-**

Tyki struck another round of cords before his voice lowered to a mere whisper, which seemingly echoed all around the place, amplified several times.

**-o0o-**

"_I've broken one finger_

_Should I break another one?_

_Now what's with this sudden silence?_

_Is it over for this one?_

_Already? Now that's way too soon_

_Out cold just by that_

_What a frail thing you are_

_Now stay still while I get the car"_

**-o0o-**

He raised his voice again at the incoming refrain.

**-o0o-**

"_Keep on screaming_

_Keep on screaming_

_Don't silence that voice_

_As you're ripped limb from limb_

_There was never a choice_

_So make some noise_

_Make some noise_

_Clawing for the exit_

_Kicking at the door_

_It's locked and you know it_

_So don't struggle anymore"_

**-o0o-**

Then he lowered it again to a mere whisper, his words sending chills down the spines of those who listened to them.

**-o0o-**

"_This is fun, now what is next?_

_Great idea, let's alter this text_

_Into a suicide note for all that I wager_

_Hey, stop kicking_

_It's useless, I can tell_

_Do you have something to say before I send you back to Hell?"_

**-o0o-**

On the other hand, with Allen, there wouldn't be a need for any altering of any text, since it would be a suicide note from the very start. Pity.

**-o0o-**

"_Keep on screaming_

_Keep on screaming_

_Don't silence that voice_

_As you're ripped limb from limb_

_There was never a choice_

_So make some noise_

_Make some noise_

_Clawing for the exit_

_Kicking at the door_

_It's locked and you know it_

_So don't struggle anymore"_

**-o0o-**

His voice lowered to a mere whisper once again.

**-o0o-**

"_You look at me, defiant, and on your face appears a grin_

_As I push you off the cliff you say "I win" before falling to your death_

_With that selfsame cheekiness I hated so much in your voice to your very last breath"_

**-o0o-**

It would've been nice if the song actually ended like that, but there was still one more verse to go before the end.

**-o0o-**

"_Keep on screaming_

_Keep on screaming_

_But you won't be screaming any more_

_Keep on falling_

_Keep on falling_

_But you've already hit the floor_

_Keep on calling_

_Keep on calling_

_But you've hung up on me I know_

_Keep on living_

_Keep on breathing_

_But you stopped breathing long ago_

_Keep on hoping_

_Keep on dreaming_

_That you would still be here_

_But you've since long departed, having elsewhere to go_

_But in the end that was a long, long time ago"_

**-o0o-**

If the last round of applause had been deafening, this one was at least three times worse and caused his ears to ring terribly; it was a sheer miracle his eardrums hadn't taken any damage yet, being exposed to this every now and then.

He raised the microphone back to his lips.

"Is anyone in for Ace of Diamonds?" he asked the audience.

Judging by their reaction it really couldn't count as a no.

**-o0o-**

Allen, finally back in control of his own body, looked on as Kanda was bandaging his hand, which had been stabbed through by said samurai's sword merely half an hour ago. Neither of them had spoken a word since then, but Allen wasn't angry. No really, he wasn't; he just thought it was a pity that Kanda hadn't actually gone through with killing him when he had looked so determined half an hour ago.

**-o0o-**

"_Your eyes are like stars sparkling_

_Radiating an eternal glow_

_Your face is that of an angel_

_But your heart is as cold as the snow"_

**-o0o-**

Kanda looked up at him briefly before resuming with the bandaging. He didn't look up again.

**-o0o-**

"_My ace of diamonds_

_Rarest jewel of the moon_

_You will be mine very soon_

_In your eyes I am reflected_

_Just like a madman_

_I stand affected_

_I know it_

_You know it_

_And we know it very well_

_That there's no man out there_

_Who can escape this spell"_

**-o0o-**

The landscape passed by outside the window at an accelerating rate, but Allen wasn't even looking in its general direction.

**-o0o-**

"_You move like you're in trance_

_Just like me when I watch you dance_

_Take stance, spin round and round_

_I'll be at your side_

_With the speed of sound_

_Let me join in_

_So that I can bewitch you too_

_My ace of diamonds_

_I'll make it all come true"_

**-o0o-**

Allen was very tired. Tired of running, tired of everything. Allen was always tired; it was the reason of why he wanted to end things after all, part of it at least.

**-o0o-**

"_My ace of diamonds_

_Rarest jewel of the moon_

_You will be mine very soon_

_In your eyes I am reflected_

_Just like a madman_

_I stand affected_

_I know it_

_You know it_

_And we know it very well_

_That there's no man out there_

_Who can escape this spell"_

**-o0o-**

He tilted his head backwards, looking up at the ceiling for a few moments before closing his eyes, wishing that the voice in his head would keep quiet, just for a little bit…

"_**Why do you want to die?"**_ the voice countered with a clear amount of amusement.

**-o0o-**

"_My ace of diamonds_

_Greatest treasure in the world_

_Eyes radiating an eternal glow_

_How they do it I'll never know_

_But there's one thing that I always hold true_

_I want to mean the world to you_

_Just like you mean the world to me_

_The sky, the moon, the stars and beyond_

_I'll tie you to me with an unbreakable bond"_

**-o0o-**

Allen blinked tiredly while staring at the ceiling. Just looking at it made him sick.

"Kanda…" he then said, addressing the samurai next to him. "I think I need to throw up."

**-o0o-**

"_My ace of diamonds_

_Rarest jewel of the moon_

_You will be mine very soon_

_In your eyes I am reflected_

_Just like a madman_

_I stand affected_

_I know it_

_You know it_

_And we know it very well_

_That not even you_

_Can escape this spell"_

**-o0o-**

_Today he had been on his last concert, so he was still wearing his tuxedo and a dark blue tie. It felt so tight that it was practically choking him, so he pulled it off. Then he looked at it with a sense of boredom before a sudden realization struck him and he looked up towards the ceiling, spotting a hook, and then back to the tie in his hand as if he was considering something._

_He took a deep breath before he went to fetch himself a chair, still with the dark blue tie in his hand._

_The house was empty, so there was no one there to stop him. He had once again outsmarted the world, but he felt a bit sorry for Mana though and hoped dearly that Mana wouldn't be the one to find him, but then he suddenly remembered that Mana was no more and he shrugged his shoulders and went through with what he had sought to do for a very long time._

**-o0o-**

_Kurozaia: ..._

_Zaia: You've lost control over this one as well, haven't you?_

_Kurozaia (nods solemnly): I believe I have... to a certain extent..._

_Zaia: So Allen's possessed?_

_Kurozaia: It appears so._

_Zaia: And Kanda stabbed him?_

_Kurozaia (shrugs): It would appear so._

_Zaia: This is reminding me an awful lot about The Destroyer of Time..._

_Kurozaia: It was not intended, so sod off._

_Zaia: ..._

_Kurozaia: ..._

_Zaia: You want __**reviews**__, right?_

_Kurozaia: Indeed, it appears I do._


	13. Stains

_I am back, still alive… The schoolwork nearly succeeded in killing me off though… Oh well… enjoy._

**-o0o-**

- **Stains** -

**-o0o-**

**Those stains, they wouldn't go away no matter how many times he washed his hands. Those red stains. The mark of a murderer…**

**The stains were still left, on his very hands. Bloodstains…**

**He had been little more than a child back then, where his sword dealt vengeance and was stained in return. No matter how many times he tried to clean it off, the stains still somehow remained, as if they had been edged into the metal itself. **

**-o0o-**

Silence lay between them as they got off the train and onto the platform. They still didn't talk when they got out on the street and made their way in direction of Tokyo Tower, but they didn't go there, as Kanda dragged him over to some temple named Zojoji or something like that. Allen didn't particularly care, as he couldn't help but to feel a bit down due to his recently lost suicide opportunity.

"You're really pathetic," Kanda snorted just as they walked past a row of perhaps a thousand small Jizō statues of which some had been given knitted red hats, covered in a thin layer of snow. "Why are you so head bent on dying anyway?"

"Isn't that your job to find out, mind reader?" Allen asked, sounding fairly bored as he once again eyed out Tokyo Tower a bit further away with an almost longing look in his eyes. "Besides, it isn't like you'd understand my reasons anyway…"

"What reasons?" Kanda retorted, adjusting his backpack. "Aren't you just a random emo kid with a certain masochistic streak who gets a kick out of overdosing, slitting your wrists and jumping off of bridges?"

Allen tilted his head to the side with a rather uncaring expression plastered onto his face.

"Not really, I'm just your average pianist prodigy that has been subjected to some severe mentally traumatizing events in a very critical time period in my life…" he said as they stopped on top of a small bridge and looked out at the water in the pond. "I may say that this started with the death of my father… however that would be a lie… I've tried to kill myself ever since I was old enough to realize that I should've never been born into this world to begin with. I never belonged here from the beginning. That's why I shouldn't be here. That's why I have to die. To end it."

"Is that because of that Thing living inside of you?" Kanda asked while watching the koi fishes down in the water. "Besides, this pond isn't deep enough for you to drown yourself in, so don't even think it."

Allen gave him an expression which was very likely a pout before his face resumed a certain amount of indifference.

"One can drown in something as small as a water glass… This pond wouldn't be much of a challenge…"

"I would not recommend it," Kanda replied. "The ones taking care of the place wouldn't look all too kindly at people throwing garbage in the pond…"

Allen's eyebrow twitched slightly.

"Am I being compared to garbage?" he asked with a very noticeable hint of annoyance in his voice.

"That depends, are you in a hurry to die?" Kanda asked, eyes zooming in on one particularly well-fed fish down in the water.

"You know, these fishes surely don't seem to fare all too bad even in wintertime," Allen said, changing the subject.

"That's because they are cold-water fish; as long as the water temperature doesn't go below 10 degrees Celsius they won't really take much damage. They also need to have a minimum dept of one and a half meters…" Kanda informed in a not all too enthusiastic tone of voice. "Koi fish eat various kinds of food such as watermelon and such but they do not eat much in winter even if this one is a fairly mild one… They can also live for quite some time; one apparently lived 226 years…"

Allen gave him an odd look before he returned to staring at the fishes.

"You're awfully knowledgeable about fish, BaKanda," Allen said. "Why is that?"

"Does it matter?" Kanda asked.

Allen shook his head as a drop of water rippled the surface. "Not really."

**-o0o-**

"_Have you tried getting run over by a car?"_

"_I've tried a couple of times…" Allen said, tilting his head to the side. "Never works. There are always people around. Stupid people that end up saving me, sometimes at the expense of their own lives. Stupid people. I want to die. So let me die. Don't die for the sake of saving me. I don't want to be saved…"_

_His companion, whoever it was, nodded in understanding before beckoning him to continue._

"_Jumping off a bridge is something I've thought about doing for a long while, but I rarely got the opportunity…" Allen said. "After all, around bridges there are usually people, people who can stop you or jump into the water to save you. Damn. I don't want to be saved. Just let me drown. I've tried drowning before, but it's kind of hard to do it because when I have the possibility to do it there's always someone watching over me like a hawk. It's kind of annoying…"_

_His companion nodded yet again as Allen himself resorted to studying hands._

"_Taking an overdose of drugs and sleeping pills is something I've tried to do many times," he then said. "So many times that my body usually rejects the pills… Not to mention that no one that knows me would ever give me something like sleeping pills…"_

_A bottle of painkillers was presented to him and he took it, his face wearing an expression of gratefulness before downing several pills with water._

"_Thanks, I wouldn't know what to do without you," he said to his companion. "But really, shooting myself in the head was never an alternative, since I don't have any gun… Slitting my throat or wrists is also impossible, since all razor-sharp objects are banned around me."_

_His companion let out an amused chuckle before urging for Allen to tell him more. Somehow Allen felt strangely at ease with talking this person, as this person didn't show the same reactions as the other people did, such as the psychologists he had been forced to see and the same psychologists that had been found floating face down in the nearest river soon afterwards. Probably Tyki's handiwork._

"_My plan to hire a torpedo to kill me also ended in a failure..." Allen said with a deep sigh._

"_Maybe you didn't hire the right torpedo?" his companion asked with a smile._

_Taking a deep breath Allen spoke up again._

"_My predecessor hung himself with a noose created from his own necktie…" he said with a certain amount of thoughtfulness. "I guess that's why I'm not allowed to wear one."_

_Chuckling was heard._

"_Oh, yes… He was a clever one."_

**-o0o-**

The great musician, the genius commonly referred to as the Fourteenth, committed suicide by hanging shortly after being released from the hospital. In the same room stood a white piano, the selfsame which had brought about his success, bewitched him with its chime and brought about his supposed insanity as he like so many other promising musicians fell a victim to the dreaded yet still admired piece of music which was said to have been composed by the Devil himself.

It was the Fourteenth's brother Mana Walker who found the note sheets of the Devil's Sonata and he did what any sensible person would've done; he threw them into the fire, but, seeing to the fact that they didn't catch fire he soon grew desperate and ended up setting the whole mansion on fire. Mana himself died in that fire; eyewitnesses claimed they had seen him laughing manically from one of the windows, playing a white piano that also somehow escaped being affected by the fire. The only survivor was the Fourteenth's younger cousin, who later became known as the pianist prodigy Allen Walker…

**-o0o-**

Dangling with her legs over the edge of her bed a quite bored Road Camelot, the child actress most commonly known for her role as the little girl possessed by a demon in the movie The Dollhouse, was watching a splatter movie. The movie itself was rated at least 18+, but luckily for Road the Millennium Earl didn't care for such small details; she was far older than she looked anyway, but the movie, even with all its gore and nasty details was just boring to her, like a lot of things in her life.

She stopped watching merely a few moments after that and after she had pressed the Stop-button some footage from Tyki's latest concert flashed by on the screen. Road stared at it without much interest before her eyes wandered off into the dark corners of her dimly lit room; she never feared the darkness; she was far too dark to do that.

A flash of white on the television screen caught her attention and she turned her head towards it, catching a brief glimpse of the very familiar face of one Allen Walker, pianist prodigy, apparently on his way out from a concert of his own. But that was old footage after all; Allen hadn't been seen in almost a week now.

Giving the currently missing musician a look she wondered why she hadn't noticed those black bags beneath his eyes, further contrasted by his fair skin; now that she thought of it Allen had looked like he had been on the verge of a mental breakdown for quite some time now, not that it was really a wonder with what he had witnessed with the Fourteenth and all… Near death experiences tended to make people a bit whacko, Allen just had the rather peculiar wish to seek out death again and again instead of wanting to avoid it like any normal person would. Not that Road ever wanted Allen to become a normal person either; if Allen had been like every other average normal person in the world then Road wouldn't have met him.

Still, if Allen really did manage to do something stupid (i.e. getting himself killed) Road was sure that Tyki would be the one grieving his loss the most; after all, one didn't need even half of a brain to figure that out; even Jasdero and Devitto got that after reading some of his lyrics. Surely, Road would definitely miss Allen like any other infatuated and slightly obsessed fan girl would, but she would definitely get over it soon enough; her attachments to everyone but the Earl were pretty weak after all. In the end, to her Allen was just one of those… pretty dolls… she could still break when in a fit of rage. Tyki probably wouldn't allow that though; but neither he nor Allen was around at the moment so it wouldn't really be a problem to begin with. Besides, she didn't need to break Allen anyway; he was already broken to begin with.

A bit pitiful surely, but it wasn't like she wanted it any other way.

Road shook her head, ridding herself of worthless thoughts as she got up from her bed and went onto find other, more alternative sources of entertainment.

**-o0o-**

Tyki was having one of those moments again, one of those very-drunk-and-depressed moments in his hotel room. This was his last night in there anyway, so Tyki was seriously considering starting to break stuff. The company would pay for the costs anyway. One virtually irreplaceable ancient china vase there, one very breakable bottle of wine here…

To say that Tyki was frustrated would be one serious understatement; Tyki was over-frustrated; he was on the verge of starting to walk back and forth in the room, tearing his hair while he desperately tried to keep focus onto something, preferably something other than the white-haired teen who had unknowingly been occupying his thoughts at a regular, not to mention constant, basis as of late. He didn't succeed.

Giving in to his racing mind Tyki whipped up his mobile phone, pressing the speed dial, as he had done quite a few times in the past, not usually having anybody pick up on him.

After a few signals somebody picked up the phone and a hesitant but awfully familiar voice resounded in the speaker.

"_Hello?"_

Tyki let out a breath he didn't even know he had been holding before collecting himself, plastering a supposedly confident smirk on his lips as he spoke up, hoping the full extent of his desperation didn't show up in his voice.

"Hi, what would you say about a double suicide?"

There was a brief silence at the other end of the line, but Tyki thought he could hear a low whisper of someone else nearby and his eyes narrowed slightly while he tried to keep things cool.

After a few seconds Allen's voice (he'd recognize it anywhere) resounded in the speaker again.

"_What's with the sudden urgency?"_

"Because I figured I can't live without you any longer," Tyki said, slurring a bit as he had been consuming quite a decent bit of alcohol. "Come back to me Aaaalleeen…"

More silence met him at the other end, if one counted out the noise sounding quite like a snort.

"_Tyki,"_ Allen then asked. _"Are you drunk?"_

"Of course I'm drunk," Tyki slurred as he leaned over a table nearby while reaching for a new bottle of wine. "Do I sound like I'm sober?"

"_Not really…"_ Allen did sound quite skeptical, it was no wonder really. _"How drunk are we talking?"_

"Drunk enough to get alcohol poisoning…"

"…_And why exactly are you calling me?"_

"I miss you…"

"_And I'm missing. Perhaps I should inform you of the fact that my imminent kidnapper is actually listening in on this call?"_

Tyki straightened out, bottle in hand.

"I don't care. Come home before I do something radical…"

A deep sigh was heard from the other end and a couple of barely audible whispers were exchanged. One voice was Allen's; the other one was almost definitely male, but not really that of an adult… or maybe Tyki's judgment was all screwed up now with all the alcohol in his bloodstream…

"_Tyki…"_ Allen said after a while, sounding somewhat thoughtful. _"Did you know that Japanese carp can live for 226 years?"_

Tyki blinked, unsure whether he should trust his hearing or not.

"Japanese carp?" he repeated, only to have Allen hang up on him. A tooting sound invaded his ear and he just couldn't believe it, staring at the phone while blinking with a look of sheer disbelief. "He hung up on me."

**-o0o-**

Allen once again sighed, looking at his phone for a brief second before handing it over to Kanda, who with an undeniable elegance threw it into the air, sending it freefalling approximately 150 meters to the ground. Allen watched it fall to its imminent death once it was certain to collide with the ground soon enough before he turned to look at Tokyo by night; the view from Tokyo Tower was pretty amazing, especially at nighttime, even if Allen just couldn't help but wonder how the Hell Kanda had gotten them in there in the first place… something about disabling the security system or something of the sort; Allen wasn't all too sure about it exactly.

Having toured the world once before Allen had thought he had seen many beautiful things in his life, but somehow, the city at night, lit up like some giant Christmas decoration, had forced him to start to reevaluate. It was a beautiful sight; he couldn't really call it anything short of breathtaking; it simply did not compare to what he had seen on film or on photographs; this was just so real, so vibrant… somehow.

"Tokyo never sleeps," Kanda said a bit absentmindedly. "And neither do we…"

Allen gave him a somewhat odd look.

"Why is that?" he asked, sounding curious.

Kanda tore his eyes away from the view and passed by him in a swift pace.

"We've got an eternity to rest," he said. "It's better to be awake and about and do the things we want to do before it's too late to do them. I was too late once; I didn't like it."

Allen stood still, watching him as he stopped his stride.

"Then why don't we leave early, instead of being up too late?" he asked.

Without warning Kanda turned around, walked up to him and snatched his lips in a kiss, which deepened gradually before Kanda drew away. Allen gave him a serious look and a light frown appeared on his face.

"Why not?"

Kanda took him by the hand, leading him.

"Because the Maker does not like when his creations show up too early…" he said. "They're such a poor return on his investment…"

Allen giggled.

**-o0o-**

_Nimble fingers traced the outline of the keys to the stark white piano and as the boy stared in wonder crimson stains started to appear. Hesitantly he pressed down a key, then another._

**-o0o-**

_Kurozaia: As for what's going on, who gives a crap?_

_Zaia: The readers probably do._

_Kurozaia: I may explain it, but only if they __**review**__._


	14. Images

_Admittedly, I have not updated in a looooong looong time because the plot had escaped me. Now however I managed to catch it, briefly, but I think it got away again but at least I now know how to continue this bloody thing. Or something like that. Supposedly._

_I do however apologize for taking so bloody long and for the fact that this chapter will likely bring about far more questions than it answers, but I can at least give the rather hopeful statement that it will be updated a bit more frequently in the future (since I need to hurry up and put an end to it instead of leaving you all hanging like that…)._

-o0o-

- **Images** -

-o0o-

**Blood… Blood was on his hands, staining them in a beautiful crimson which contrasted greatly to the extreme paleness of his skin. **

**Coughing he doubled over, out of breath. Unable to even stand up straight he fell to the floor, eyes still resting on the accursed white piano standing at the end of the room and even more so at the Shadow standing next to it.**

"**Why?" he whispered, voice hoarse.**

**Glowing orbs that were supposedly eyes rested on him for a while before the Shadow turned its back to him, apparently having deemed him unworthy of any further attention.**

**Not that it surprised him, not at all actually.**

**He was slowly dying and he knew it.**

**Hence he held little use to the Shadow, the Demon that had inhabited his body ever since he had touched the forbidden, ever since he had threaded into territory in which no mortal belonged.**

**Having been deemed unworthy he had been thrown away as the broken toy he was.**

-o0o-

Dark blue eyes snapped open, staring up at a ceiling that looked only vaguely familiar to him. In his attempt to sit up Kanda found that there was something cutting off the blood circulation to his arm. Catching sight of messy white tresses of hair a vague sense of realization hit him like a sledgehammer and he got up on one elbow, the one which wasn't trapped, and surveyed the situation he had somehow ended up in. In truth, there was only one word for it.

_Shit._

Next to him lay Allen Walker, sleeping with a serene look on his youthful face, using his left arm as a makeshift pillow, white hair surrounding his head like some halo. He looked surprisingly peaceful, and Kanda would probably have enjoyed it more if he hadn't gotten this sudden feeling of near panic at what had apparently taken place the night before.

Well, he could safely assume that things hadn't gone according to any plan that he had been aware of, or had it?

After all, he had initiated it. That much he could recall with a nearly hundred percent's certainty, although he still couldn't figure out how the Hell they had ended up there, in a building he'd by then identified as one of the attics in the outskirts of the city, one of Bookman's old and rarely used 'retreats', where he stored some of his extensive art collection (and on occasion, other stuff as well).

In the end, Kanda assumed that at least it was better than them having ended up in a hotel god-knows-where in the city, where being discovered was much easier in case there was someone on the lookout for either one of them.

Speaking of which, the white-haired teen that had been the object of his renewed scrutiny shifted slightly in his sleep, allowing Kanda to free his arm and to slip out of the makeshift bed (it was more like a simple mattress with a couple of blankets than an actual bed). Making a keen observation on his own scarcely clad state he then went off to search among the pieces of clothing scattered on the floor for his own, dressing himself to a bit more decent state before going off to explore the rest of the attic.

Finding mostly just paintings and half-finished sketches along with painting materials instead of anything remotely useful in his opinion, useful things being defined as either pieces of weaponry, food or money, he snorted lightly and started rummaging through his pockets.

Eventually he found some small change, but after counting it he swiftly determined it was enough to buy something reasonably breakfast like for the two of them and lunch too if they were lucky. With a sigh he fished out his credit card, staring at it in disdain; normally he avoided using cards as much as possible since they would make his movements easier to trace, but in truth necessity had no law.

Looking at his cell phone he saw that it half past nine in the morning. Determining that this was likely the best opportunity he'd have to go out and get supplies, with Allen still sleeping and hopefully unable to hurt himself too much in the time it'd take for him to go to the nearest convenience store and back. If he hurried it'd probably take half an hour, tops, and most of that time would be spent in either the elevator or in the stairs going down and back up.

Pulling his boots on and putting his hair into place Kanda's eyes once again came to rest on the still sleeping form of musician Allen Walker, a fifteen- maybe sixteen-year-old boy, barely legal (at the moment, Kanda couldn't correctly recall what the law said and if it wasn't legal then he'd committed illegal acts multiple times already so he probably shouldn't give a damn… even if he did feel like somewhat of a cradle robber).

Merely thinking about it caused a barely noticeable flush to appear on his cheeks. Even so his facial expression remained stoic, although it softened a miniscule bit when he bent down, fingers brushing across the slighter male's messy white fringe.

"I'll be right back…"

-o0o-

_Standing there in that room, so sparklingly clean and white that it actually came close to blinding him, he stared down at his aching hands and especially his fingertips before once again turning his eyes away to look towards the piano which stood a bit further away; it seemed to be tempting him, almost taunting him, trying to get him to play it once more._

_No way in Hell that he was doing that again. Never ever. He wouldn't._

_An hour later he could be found there yet again, playing it like a madman._

_He only stopped when someone finally had some pity on him, one hand grabbing hold of the back of his shirt and dragging him backwards while the other slammed the lid shut, hiding those wicked black and white keys from the world._

_He looked up, partially annoyed at having been interrupted but at the same time feeling oddly relieved, and found himself staring into the mesmerizing eyes of Tyki Mikk._

"_That's enough."_

_He stared at him, taking note of the genuine look of concern that flashed across the other's face._

"_That's enough," the man repeated, taking both his hands into his bigger ones. "Just… don't."_

"_Why not?" came his own voice, small but still very much audible and first and foremost indifferent. "Why would you care?"_

_The hands that had held his so tightly there for a couple of seconds let go of him abruptly, but his freedom lasted only for a second before arms lashed around his thin form, pulling him close in a tight embrace._

"_What are you doing?" he asked, sounding more confused than anything. "Let go."_

"_No," Tyki answered, sounding oddly calm._

"_Why not?"_

"_Because I cannot simply stand by and watch you destroy yourself."_

_Silver-gray eyes turned towards a pair that looked almost golden, holding a challenge._

"_Why does it matter whether I destroy myself or not?" Allen asked, still caught in an involuntary embrace. "It's a befitting fate, is it not?" he then added, sardonically. _

_The older man said nothing, still not letting go. Then he finally spoke, his breath ghosting against Allen's ear._

"_If playing makes you feel unwell then I don't want you to touch that thing again," Tyki Mikk said, throwing a distasteful glance towards the piano. "That piano is cursed and has been the bane of many great musicians over the years… Don't let it take you too, Allen."_

"_Why not?"_

"_Because you're the only thing keeping me reasonably sane at the moment."_

-o0o-

Silver-gray eyes snapped open, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Or inner roof, depending on a perspective.

He frowned lightly, making it out to be some sort of… attic?

Sitting up he surveyed the area, taking a brief note of his scantily clad state before pulling his knees up, leaning onto them while closing his eyes.

_I remember…_

-o0o-

He had been ten when he'd taken up playing the piano, or been forced into it depending on the perspective; sure, initially he himself had taken the first step, taking a seat at the accursed instrument, having been lured there like so many others. In truth he hadn't actually known what he had been doing at the time; it was his own childish curiosity that had made him vulnerable to the lure of that accursed piano.

Then, following that initial encounter, he'd been terrified, though not by the piano itself but by all the people that had seen him play, by the Earl especially, due to the look he'd seen in his eyes, predatory, scary…

The Earl had told him to play and so he did, even with a partially numb left arm due to the burns he'd obtained in the then-recent fire. With afterthought one could pretty safely say that it was sheer miracle that he recovered from his injuries at all in the aftermath that followed…

Then, before he knew it, playing had become like a lifeline to him and he'd found himself addicted, enjoying it almost, and had been unable to stop for long periods of time. In-between he experienced varying degrees of depression lasting for everything from days up until weeks and months.

Then finally, when he was around twelve years old he had once again come to the conclusion he had apparently reached already, several years previous, only that he hadn't remembered it previously as his mind had stepped in to shield him from the memories that in the end came to resurface due to the pressure he was under at that time.

The wish to escape his life… permanently.

The solution… as in… taking his own life.

As funny and ironic as it was when he thought of it now his earlier belief of having lived happily with his adoptive father Mana was at best a delusion on his part, since even if him and Mana had certainly had their moments of sharing the joys of being family there was still a lot of things that his mind had omitted from him without his knowledge, keeping the memories themselves locked up somewhere deep inside.

Dissociation.

-o0o-

"_Mana! Mana!"_

_A scrawny child of maybe eight or nine bounced happily around him, eager to please and eager to be loved like a little puppy almost._

"_Come look!"_

_Lively and curious, more often than not more curious than for his own good…_

"_Uwa… that's so cool…"_

_Eyes, silver-gray, rested on some old artifact, filled with a sense of awe and great fascination for whatever reason…_

-o0o-

_**The same eyes, yet not, stared back at him suddenly, leveling him with a cold and flat stare. Those eyes, so old and tired in comparison to earlier, held no light, no hope, just plain cold indifference.**_

_**Yet another pair of eyes rested on him at times, eyes that were at best filled with only mild contempt and not the kind of scorching hatred that he knew that they were able to display, especially so when catching sight of a bottle of some particular brand or catching the scent of a particular brand of cigarettes, upon which the expression in those eyes darkened noticeably.**_

_**Having had the kid for such a brief amount of time he hadn't pried much into the matter, not wanting to risk losing the already frail trust Allen had placed in him. It had likely been a quite foolish thing to leave it alone like that and not investigate any further; however at that time he had reasoned that as long as Allen did no one any harm during his extreme mood swings there was little reason for him to intervene and try to persuade the kid into talking to a psychologist as Allen seemed to be doing quite well, most of the time.**_

_**Besides, Neah had said that Allen would likely warm up to him eventually, when the kid had managed to piece himself together after whatever had occurred to him previous to Mana taking him in.**_

_**In truth, Mana had always wanted to believe that, but whenever those eyes came to rest on him, especially the totally indifferent ones, he couldn't help but wonder whether he'd ever find anything beyond acceptance in those eyes that came to rest on him from time to time when he appeared not to be looking, regarding him with suspicion, as an outsider instead of as family, and with Neah spending less time with him and more time with that 'Earl' or whatever the man was, Mana honestly couldn't say if he could take much more rejection, be it from kin or otherwise.**_

_**Eventually he decided that he mustn't ponder such things; he had a job to go to, a kid to look after and a brother to worry about and being only one person he couldn't do all of it at once. He was only a human after all and he had his vices; he was no genius like his brother but he still made a habit out of trying to do his best to the extent such a thing was even possible.**_

-o0o-

_His cousin Neah (in real life his adoptive uncle, although the younger Allen had immediately opted with calling him cousin, with the motivation that Neah didn't look old enough to be an unlce), hanging from the ceiling in a noose constructed from his very own necktie._

-o0o-

_His expression was peaceful, though still haunted even in death._

-o0o-

_All over the room lay papers scattered around, note sheets._

-o0o-

_The piano stood there, blindingly bright in the otherwise grim scenery, still managing to stand out quite marvelously even when the room itself had been set ablaze._

-o0o-

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, bringing him back to reality.

Raising his eyes he found himself staring into Kanda's dark eyes. There was a certain amount of concern in the other's gaze but Allen paid it no heed as he instead looked around, finding himself sitting in a chair before some sort of big unfinished painting, stained in black.

"What are you doing?" Kanda asked, voice a mixture in-between disturbed and honestly curious.

Allen looked at him for a few moments, then looked back to the painting, tilting his head slightly to the side with a rather thoughtful expression on his face.

"I've never been very good at expressing myself," he finally admitted. "Not through anything but music at least… but watching this unfinished painting really got me thinking for some reason…"

"Thinking about what?" Kanda retorted, still with a frown present on his face.

"Aren't you supposed to know that?" Allen countered, looking at him with a certain amount of amusement. "Being a mind-reader and all…"

"I don't recall ever saying that I was one," Kanda snorted, throwing a look of utter distaste at the painting which yet again held the other's interest. "Admittedly, I am rather well versed in body language and have a keen sense of intuition, enabling me to 'read thoughts' but only on a surface level, but mind-reader?"

"Well versed in body language?" Allen repeated, tilting his head to the other side. "I'll buy that."

"Besides," the older man continued. "Your thoughts… no, your mind itself is a serious mess right now."

"You have no idea," Allen said, tilting his head so that he was staring Kanda straight in the eye. "But as I said, I suck at expressing myself properly so explaining how I became that way may take a while…"

"Why?" Kanda snorted. "Do you suddenly feel a need to tell me your life story or something?"

"Something like that," Allen replied with a shrug, turning back to the painting, taking little note of the sarcasm which was quite apparent in the other's tone. "Because, whether you like it or not, I will disappear eventually, from this world or otherwise, just like my predecessor…"

"Through suicide?" the other flatly asked.

"Not necessarily," Allen replied, still keeping his eyes on the painting.

-o0o-

_Kurozaia: Next up: Allen tells his life story. The Earl plans something sinister. Tyki hitches a ride. Road is bored. Will everything become clear?_

_Zaia: Probably not._

_Kurozaia: But we can always hope, can't we?_


	15. Notes

_It's time for a pathetic life story and flashbacks, Tyki taking out his frustrations on a fairly innocent passerby and philosophical discussions about life and death…and psychology.  
_

_Next chapter will be far more interesting, I'll just tell you that._

_As for all my other fics I do not have time to update at the moment unfortunately, since I have Language Structure, Literature and Linguistics to study and so on._

_Anyways… Will everything come clear in this chapter?_

_Well… probably not. But I do think that things make just a little more sense than they did previously._

_Anyways, I have to go whip up something to eat and then I have to work my ass off because I haven't done all the schoolwork I was supposed to do today. But enjoy anyway! ^^_

-o0o-

**- Notes -**

-o0o-

_**He was no musician and to be completely truthful; he cared very little for music in the first place, at least not beyond the point where it had affected his life and most of all his brother, how it had destroyed him…**_

_**Still, somehow, standing there in that room something snapped deep within him, filling him to the brim with rage, angering him to the very point that he wanted to see it all destroyed, wanted to see it all burn, wanted to deny that what had taken place was real…**_

_**He'd sought to burn the note sheets, deeming them to be the work of the Devil, and he'd also sought to burn the piano itself, which he had come to view as the Devil's instrument for snaring his brother like it had, trapping him in some sort of destructive spiral and bringing about his end…**_

_**He hadn't succeeded in either endeavor, losing his own life in the process, though not in the flames themselves but from asphyxiation…**_

_**Unaware of the fact that his son in everything but blood had been standing there frozen, his eyes wide as they watched him die, searing the horrid image into a terrified child's retina.**_

"_**Mana!"**_

-o0o-

Tyki Mikk was annoyed to say the very least, staring at the display of his mobile phone as if doing so would automatically summon an answer from the people he'd been calling all morning, but after several minutes of doing just that to seemingly no avail he shoved it back into the pocket of his coat. He rubbed his hands, trying to restore the circulation in the cold and inwardly cursed himself for not having the sense to bring along thicker gloves. He had brought along a scarf however and also a pair of sunglasses through which he surveyed the area in which he was standing, which just happened to be on a bus stop seemingly in the middle of nowhere and having virtually no idea of how he got there.

He paid very little heed to any of this however, simply focusing on finding a way to get out of the cold and hopefully find Allen while he was at it, which was obviously easier said than done since Allen's phone was apparently no longer in service.

On the other hand, the Earl wasn't picking up either, directing him to one of those seriously annoying answering machines telling him to leave a message, which he had done about twenty times already and mostly to annoy the man, an attempt which had apparently backfired big time because Tyki himself was the one who ended up being annoyed instead.

As a last resort he opted for calling Road, only to have her reply that she was about to go on stage for a live performance and that she wouldn't be assisting him in any way, because it was "more interesting this way" according to her.

Flopping down onto the bench located in the bus stop Tyki heaved a sighed before reaching into his other pocket and pulling out a black notebook.

_Allen seriously needs to keep better track of his stuff…_

It was not a diary that Tyki held in his hands as one may have expected, but rather just a notebook containing the lyrics to a majority of the white-haired teen's compositions.

He was just about to engross himself in reading when a car which had just swept by on the road next to him suddenly backed up again and a car window was winded down and the driver, a blond long-haired woman who looked like a tourist (an American, he spontaneously guessed), eyed him up and down for a moment.

"Tyki Mikk, right? I was at your performance a couple of days ago; it was awesome! I'm a big fan!"

Yep, definitely American, at least judging from the general enthusiasm and accent.

He shoved the notebook back into his pocket.

-o0o-

Allen Walker let out a low humming sound, leaning forward against the chain link fence, surveying the lively traffic below. From the place where he was standing, on top of a tall building, the people down there on the streets looked really small, kind of like ants, but he pushed the thought aside and turned his eyes to the clear sky instead, the cold causing his breath to come out as a small white cloud.

"Where to start?" he mused out loud, paying little attention to the snort he heard from behind. "Kanda, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity so can't you at least try to act a bit more interested? It isn't every day I offer to spill my darkest secret to some random thug who kidnapped me, right?"

"You didn't exactly protest," Kanda finally snorted.

"I wasn't exactly in much of a condition to do so now, was I?" Allen questioned as he turned around with a pronouncedly fake smile plastered on his face as he tore off the black wig he'd been wearing up until that point.

"You were about to jump off a bridge," Kanda hissed, eyes narrowing slightly. "What was I supposed to have done?"

"You could've just looked the other way and let me jump," Allen replied, still smiling cheerfully. "But then again, that goes against your nature, doesn't it?"

He paused briefly, his cheerful expression fading a little.

"That night on the bridge…" he then said, tilting his head slightly to the side "I had waited for such an opportunity for ages, waited for an opportunity to slip out while the security was temporarily lowered and my watchers had taken their eyes off of me for just the amount of time that I needed in order to make my getaway… I came upon that bridge, and found it a quite nice location to commit the deed and bam, you came around and interrupted me just like that, pulling me away from there although it was seriously none of your business… ruining my plans like that…"

"Disappointed?" Kanda asked with a snort, turning his head away while Allen leveled him with an even stare.

"Disappointed, yes. Surprised, obviously. Angry? Not really," the younger teen finally said, tilting his head to the other side. "I admit that I made up my mind about dying a long time ago and that you did ruin my plans for that particular night… but overall your actions are only delaying the inevitable."

"And why is that?"

Allen turned back to the fence, leaning his forehead against it and closing his eyes.

"In order to understand my reasons you have to know my story, our story…" he finally said, remaining like that with his forehead against the fence and his fingers grabbing onto it like a lifeline. "The story of Allen Walker."

-o0o-

_Sitting motionlessly in the backseat of a car heading to yet another place to meet yet another possible parent, sat a young boy sending an occasional glace outside the car window, watching the surrounding houses pass by while the social worker sitting next to him, a nervous and clumsy woman he vaguely recalled as Miranda, chiding him or at least trying to for something he had pulled earlier while at the same time trying to encourage him to smile again, to act cheerful instead of acting all rude and glaring at possible parents._

_He didn't listen; having heard the same rant over and over again maybe a dozen times or more he really failed to see the point. Besides, even if he did rectify his behavior it was only a question of time before he was back there again at the orphanage, having been discarded once more._

_First he had gone through numerous foster homes._

_Then his guardian, whom he only had a very vague recollection of, finally signed himself free of all responsibilities, none of which he had taken previously anyway, making him a ward of the state and placing him into an orphanage._

_Then it had started again._

_Hopefuls arrived, looking for a kid to adopt._

_They had been lined up, almost like cattle; it was only the measuring equipment and the nurses and the doctors that were missing._

_It was a selection process._

_Those who were chosen and given a ticket out of the place were considered to be the lucky ones, but those that came back after a while were ostracized by the other orphans as they hadn't been kept._

_He'd had enough of that long ago though and calmly ignored whatever taunts were sent his way; he had already had enough of trying to please people while going through all those foster homes and he thought he knew every trick in the book on how to get taken in by a family but also on how to get kicked out._

_With his hair, white for as long as he could remember, and his eyes, silver-gray, he didn't particularly need to distinguish himself through acting cute or friendly whenever there were potential adopters around. In truth he had far outgrown that as he knew that in his case it mattered very little in the end. Repeated rejection had made him jaded and in the end the only thing he could do was to wait until he was old enough to stand on his own feet, upon which he would leave and see the world for a while, decide on whether or not it was worth the effort and if not then he had already memorized uncountable ways to remedy that._

_Thinking about it, he assumed that he could be considered a rather twisted individual with a morbid way of thinking and a humor which mirrored it, but in the end he supposed that after having led the life he had so far it was likely that anyone would end up like he had._

_For his young age he was surprisingly insightful about many things that the so called grownups often sought to shield children from, probably because he had already had a decent amount of experience with quite a few of them._

_Still, sitting there in the backseat of a car, which had just pulled into the driveway belonging to the house that was their destination, Allen unclasped his seatbelt and opened the car door. Then he jumped out, the soles of his worn sneakers impacting on asphalt, turning his head and craning his neck slightly to fully survey the place in which he would likely be staying for about three or four days or so as it was the average amount of time people had him before opting to send him back to the orphanage._

_Getting a little lost in his thoughts he didn't notice him at first, the man sitting on the front porch towards which Miranda herded him. As such he startled slightly when the man suddenly crouched before him so that their faces were on the same level and extending a hand towards him._

_Allen stared at the hand, at first dumbfounded, then he slowly reached out to shake it._

"_Mana Walker is my name," the man said. "Nice to meet you, Allen."_

_His hand was warm, but Allen still couldn't help but regard the man with slight suspicion, not really reflecting on why exactly but silently reassured by the fact that he'd likely send him back to the orphanage in less than a weeks' time._

_He didn't._

-o0o-

Allen sighed, taking a deep breath before he started speaking again. "Back before Mana Walker adopted me… I had already spent years going through numerous different foster homes… and apparently hadn't been treated that well in at least some of them… judging from the fact that I dissociated from myself shortly after my seventh birthday… creating at least two additional personalities or identities to cope with whatever happened to me at the time…"

"Like the idiot," Kanda snorted.

"Not exactly like Lavi, but close," Allen replied, still in the same position as earlier. "I don't know his story, obviously, but the thing is that in his case there's no one at home; the 'real' Lavi isn't active and as such his body is likely entirely run by his different alter egos…"

"So in short, the idiot displaced himself," Kanda commented. "I guess that explains a lot."

"Lavi went into hiding," Allen replied. "I didn't. It was pressure, inside and outside, that caused me to split, giving birth to the so called 'Dark Allen', the foul-mouthed rogue, programmed to keep this body alive using all means available; physical violence, blackmail, anything went as long as it kept him and myself safe from whatever dangers lurked on the outside."

Kanda didn't comment, although he was still very skeptical about the whole thing.

"It got us transferred several times," Allen continued with a slight sigh. "From one foster home to another as none of our foster parents were able to handle me when Black Allen came around, distrustful and aggressive and a handful in general. Then 'Light Allen' came around, expressing some since long forgotten desire of mine to be loved and to be a part of a real family… Many who met this newest Allen found themselves wanting to adopt me, but with my track record most of them eventually decided not to go through with it…"

-o0o-

_He was a charming little child, a bit on the silent side but always very polite and almost always smiling._

_He appeared so bright in this bleak world, so pure and so full of hopes and dreams that few could resist him, drawn in by that small reserved smile of his, the same smile which hid many secrets._

_Many took him in or at least considered doing so, but in the end no one kept him._

_Behind the mask of an angel lay something else, something far more sinister which bubbled to the surface seemingly without provocation…_

_Still, even as the accounts of young Allen not being quite "right in the head" started piling up, many were still drawn in by that smile of his, which sometimes even lit up into the kind of dazzling grin reminiscent of the sun and filled with honest happiness._

_Allen was a complex child, a fact which surprisingly few people paid much attention to. Obviously quite a few realized that with a past such as his some quirks were inescapable, but no one ever realized that Allen had at some point come to exist as three distinctively different "people" in one body._

_Until a man by the name Mana Walker entered Allen's life. _

-o0o-

Letting go of the fence Allen turned around to face Kanda, leaning his back against it instead. "Mana was different from the others… Besides, Light Allen started coming out whenever he was around so I always assumed that he was a pretty decent person. Shortly after he'd adopted me Dark Allen gradually faded, burying himself within the deepest part of my subconscious, taking the major part of all the dark memories with him, leaving me and Light Allen to live with Mana on our own…"

-o0o-

_Allen had never truly known what a true family was all about, only holding onto preconceived notions he'd gathered in the previous years, from real life experience and books, on how families should behave._

_Applying those motions into real life Mana was swiftly tagged as the father in the family, but even if it was initially just the two of them there were still others that were more distant, like Neah, but young Allen considered it and decided to label them his relatives instead and give them titles such as Cousin and Uncle, the latter to Tyki Mikk's obvious dismay ("I'm like twenty! I'm way too young to be referred to as Uncle!")._

_Neah was swiftly tagged as "Cousin", for the simple reason that he looked more like a Cousin to Allen than an Uncle. What Neah himself thought about it was never revealed._

-o0o-

"I let Light Allen have his way and act as the dominating persona for quite some time, all while Dark Allen's impressions gradually started seeping into me, haunting my dreams and sending me into bouts of self-destructiveness…" Allen said, looking thoughtfully down at the city below. "Unlike Dark Allen I myself was never crafted to handle the feelings and memories that he had held onto; I created him simply for that purpose actually, unconsciously, so that I myself wouldn't have to deal with it…"

-o0o-

_One step. Another. Like a man walking to his own execution. Slowly, slowly. But not too slow._

_He was tired. So tired._

_Tired of life. Tired of everything. Tired of walking down the stairs. Tired of walking up the stairs._

_He suddenly turned around, looking down it. He found that it was really far down to the second floor from the place where he was currently standing._

_By time it had become almost like a game to him._

"_**Look up or down, will I fall and drown, in an evening gown... Nope."**_

_He tried skipping to the next step, trying to lose his balance almost on purpose._

"_**Let's roll the dice, ultimate demise or even worse to come… Nope."**_

_He skipped another step._

"_**Will I smile or will I cry, will I live or will I die…Say."**_

_He lost his balance, falling backwards, but he was soon __steadied by a pair of hands, so he tilted his head back so that he could see who had stood in his way. A pair of golden eyes frowned at him._

"_Please refrain from playing such dangerous games while I'm at home, would you?"_

_He smiled back at the person, his smiles had fooled many before, but the man behind him with the golden eyes was apparently aware that the smile meant something else. That person had also been the first one to actually figure out that he was actually playing, even if it was with his own life._

_The man with the golden eyes sighed._

"_Keep behaving like that and you'll never get out of here…"_

_In the end it was all the same to him, just a game._

"_Listen here, Boy," the man said. "I know perfectly what's going on inside that pretty little head of yours and I certainly do not like it, but if trying to off yourself is some sort of new hobby of yours I won't interfere as long as you do not do it in plain sight while I'm at home, okay?"_

_He simply stared at the man, saying nothing._

"_I said, is that understood, Allen or whoever's in there right now," the man said, flicking his forehead._

"_All of us are Allen," he answered, rubbing the sore spot on his face. "Tyki Mikk."_

"_Then Suicidal Allen, have you properly understood what I've been trying to tell you?"_

"…_To only try and off myself when you aren't around?"_

"_Good boy."_

-o0o-

"Anyways," Allen sighed. "After partially integrating with Dark Allen on some level I gradually became more aware of the things that had occurred during the times surrounding the circumstances during which he was initially created. As mentioned this caused me to become partially self-destructive, which in turn was the start of my numerous suicide attempts over the years… though I never actually tried anything seriously during the time that Mana was still alive and Light Allen was still going strong; I only started when Mana died and that other Allen died with him, leaving an empty void within me which left me vulnerable for possession…"

-o0o-

"And then my curiosity got the best of me," Allen finished. "I played a cursed piano, got possessed by the Devil and here I am… supposedly."

-o0o-

"As for why I dissociated in the first place those memories are still not within my reach, not entirely at least, but from what I do know my father was an abusive red-haired womanizing drunkard… As for my mother… she was decent… most of the time," Allen said, looking for the right words. "She was very… religious so to say… and not very motherly from what I can recall… but she died and my father was declared unfit to take care of me, sending me right into foster care and the Hell that awaited me there."

Silence reigned for a while. Then Kanda spoke.

"That's it?"

"That's pretty much it," Allen affirmed. "Pathetic, isn't it?"

He paused briefly.

"But then again, you've experienced something similar," he said, sounding thoughtful. "Am I right, Kanda?"

-o0o-

Tyki hummed to himself a melody which was very familiar to him as he washed his hands, watching as the last of the crimson red disappeared down through the drain in the bottom of the sink.

He was feeling much better now, having worked out his frustrations on a to him seemingly appropriate target and had managed to do so without bloodying his clothes (not noticeably at least), and best of all he managed to catch a train to Tokyo, following his instincts or as he had jokingly referred to it his "Allen senses" which tingling had only increased the closer he got.

Tyki Mikk pulled out the notebook again and continued reading.

He was feeling incredibly lucky this day somehow.

-o0o-

Meanwhile, in a meeting room far far but not so far away sat a man going by the name of the Millennium Earl, adding the final touches to his grand master plan.

At the same table, but on the other end of it, sat an old balding man with black-smeared eyes alongside a red-haired young man in his later teens, both of them regarding the man at the other end of the table with serious expressions. Neither of them spoke, silently regarding the man in front of them.

They had gotten the answers they had sought after for so long, but not without paying the price.

Having fallen into the category specially reserved for those who "knew too much", they were given a choice consisting of two different alternatives.

Cooperate or die.

Unsurprisingly, they had both chosen the former.

_I'm sorry about this, Yu._

-o0o-

_**Kurozaia: **__The upcoming chapter is titled "Lyrics". I have it written on my computer already and will release it… well… when people want me to? So… __**Review?**_


	16. Lyrics

_As I believe was promised to at least one of the reviewers to last chapter, here's the next one (I did promise to post the next time I woke up, didn't I?)_

_As for the poetry all of them but the one at the end is from the poem/song **Forget and Rewind** and the one that isn't is from **Path**. Both of these are mine and I like to edit them slightly from time to time but they're still mine so please do not claim them as your own._

_Anyways, enjoy! ^^_

-o0o-

**- Lyrics -**

-o0o-

_What did they hold_

_These injured fingertips of mine_

_What events would unfold_

_If you were not on my mind_

_Taking my heart apart_

_And scattering the pieces_

_So let's all just forget and rewind_

-o0o-

**He** was angry.

-o0o-

_Forget and rewind_

_Erasing you from this mind_

_Plugging my ears so that I won't hear_

_Your whispers anymore_

-o0o-

Angry and drunk.

And violent.

-o0o-

_What did they see_

_These blinded eyes of mine_

_Who covered them from these visions of terror_

_While you had yet to realize your errors_

_As the mask cracked and fell to pieces and I saw what lay beneath_

_I was blinded by tears_

_At the realization of my worst fears_

_Let's all just forget and rewind_

-o0o-

He was scared. Hiding in the closet, where **Her** numerous evening gowns still hung although **She** herself had since long expired.

-o0o-

_Forget and rewind_

_Erasing you from this mind_

_Raising the volume so I wouldn't hear_

_Keeping your screams from piercing my ears_

-o0o-

The cassette player had been a gift from his old Indian friend from kindergarten, Narain.

It had been very precious to him, but it had been broken by that man like so much else.

-o0o-

_What did they hear_

_These deafened ears of mine_

_Those screams, yours, have made me numb_

_I lock all the doors to my mind_

_Let's all just forget and rewind_

-o0o-

He didn't want to feel any longer, didn't want to see, didn't want to hear, didn't want to experience it in any shape or form, but as always his opinion held very little or no meaning at all in anyone's eyes…

Since he couldn't be spared from the experience he instead learnt how to forget, how to take all those memories and shove them down the drain, keeping them suppressed at any cost.

-o0o-

_Forget and rewind_

_Erasing you from this mind_

_Erasing your memory so these wounds may heal_

_Erasing this numbness so I can once again feel_

_Some emotion again as a change to the indifference_

_Let's all just forget and rewind_

-o0o-

He just wanted to be normal, to be a normal kid and to live a normal life and to have a normal family to love him and not try and instill fear, "respect" or whatever that man called it, into him.

It had left him with a zigzag scar on the left part of his face, running vertically from above his eyebrow and down onto his cheek like a thin line serving as a permanent reminder of his failure to be sufficient in that man's eyes.

And if that wasn't enough, that man had also taken great pleasure in deliberately cutting him with the shards of a broken wine bottle, etching an inverted pentagram at the beginning of the then bleeding wound while proclaiming that he was the son of the Devil himself.

Wounds eventually healed and scars eventually grew fainter, though parts of them still remained as a constant reminder of his incompetence.

It was a reminder that did him no good when he pushed that memory and so many others beneath the surface, just around the time that his hair, previously muddy brown, started sprouting tresses of white until gradually all of the brown parts had faded, seemingly drained of their color by all the whiteness.

Only then did the Social Services come for him.

-o0o-

_A dark-haired boy eyed the house in clear disapproval, frowning as he did so._

_His frown only deepened at the arrival of the eccentric man who owned the house, his old arts teacher back in third grade or so, Froi Tiedoll._

_He paid very little attention to the additional pair standing in the doorway, one emitting a sense of curiosity while the other clearly looked at him in dismay._

_Oh God, why did his damned good-for-nothing parents have to move to the states and then die soon afterwards in a conveniently staged accident?_

_Also, why did his mother's good-for-nothing family have to have disowned his mother for marrying with that American military man and then refuse to take him in when both of his parents suddenly but not too unexpectedly bit the dust?_

_Also, why did the bloody bureaucracy and social services refuse to even consider his request to be sent back home to Japan to one of their orphanages instead?_

_So many questions, yet so few answers._

_Twelve-year-old Kanda Yu did however know one thing for certain; he was not going to enjoy this._

-o0o-

He was sitting in an interrogation room; it might've been called something else but it was essentially one so he took it for what it was where he sat on an uncomfortable chair and stared at a nearly untouched plate of cookies which had been pushed in front of him, all while this social worker or police officer or whatever she were tried to coax him into talking about his home life and other such things.

He had rewarded her with a blank look just then before looking down again, giving a noncommittal answer.

There was nothing to say quite simply and this fact had little to do with his guardian threatening to kill him if told on him; he really had nothing to say as he could recall very little of the things that they were asking about.

It certainly took a while before they finally gave up on him, after having sent in quite an impressive number of social workers and psychologists and whatnots.

Allen paid them very little need however and helped himself to another cookie.

-o0o-

_Having been born reasonably intelligent he'd almost breezed through school with fairly grades, especially in mathematics and in art, the latter even though he admittedly hated to it._

_Still, his guardian, fussing over him and unwilling to let his "talent" go to waste, wanted to enroll him into some sort of art college, at which point Kanda had actually put his foot down and demanded that if he would have to study art he'd do so in his own country and not the states._

_Managing to get into university over in Japan he moved there without further ado and went to university and studied diligently for a while and winning a fair amount of recognition in certain art circles._

_It was probably through that which his mother's family learnt of him having returned to Japan and although they made no direct move to contact him or anything he could still tell that they were interested in him and especially so when they learnt about his talent both with the sword and with the paintbrush. When they had eventually approached him with an offer he had turned them down coldly without even the slightest consideration; they hadn't wanted him back when he'd needed them and he sure wasn't about to go play family with them just because they had suddenly decided that he might not have been a good-for-nothing after all._

_He continued with his studies and eventually his adoptive brother Noise Marie moved to Japan to stay with him while studying Japanese music; with Marie being blind and all it wasn't like he would've been able to refuse anyway and Marie had certainly been the preferred alternative to his other adoptive brother Daisya Barry, the soccer-obsessed moron, or even Tiedoll himself._

_They had gotten along fairly well and all and likely would've continued in the same manner if fate didn't have some sort of grudge on him and wanted to make his life as miserable as humanly possible._

_His biological family, apparently feeling a need to restore their honor after him having disgraced them with his none too polite refusal, felt the need to punish him, and having a strong connection to the yakuza they proceeded to do so by hiring a torpedo to shoot a blind man in the back and then leave him to bleed to death after having been shot through the lung._

_There had been nothing even remotely honorable about it, more cowardly than anything really, and as soon as the whole deal with a funeral, or rather the cremation and the following memorial, had been held and Tiedoll and Daisya had returned to the states Kanda himself had taken the appropriate measures. The appropriate measures taken being: cutting off all contact with Tiedoll and Daisya, dropping out of university and purchasing a gun from some underground dealer along with numerous other items of questionable legality to use in dealing away with his unwanted relatives._

_One thing Kanda's relatives had gravely miscalculated was his character, as they had apparently seen him as far too untrained to be much of a threat while at the same time disregarding the fact that Kanda was smart, especially when it came to outwitting people with sometimes deadly results._

_The Kanda family dojo had been destroyed in a fire, killing the Family Head and two of his closer advisors and in the confusion which followed Kanda did away with them one by one. Some were shot, through the back and in the face, in the mouth to look as an apparent suicide. Others received overdoses either of medical drugs like sleeping pills or other drugs like heroin. Some were even blatantly poisoned, by mercury of all things. Those that remained died in accidents, real ones or staged ones, but in the end they all got written off as confrontations between criminal gangs and honest suicides and accidents._

_It was soon after that when a lawyer of all things appeared on his doorstep, informing him in a businesslike fashion that he as the sole remaining heir to the Kanda family would be inheriting all their worldly wealth and other possessions._

_He'd been so surprised and so utterly disgusted at the mere thought of it that he had initially declined, only to let himself be persuaded to come to better conclusions by said lawyer. Apparently his biological family, the one whose virtual extinction he was very much responsible for, still had a fair deal of wealth counting in old artifacts that hadn't gotten lost in the fire, but in the end he sold off most of it, keeping only the katana which had been considered a family heirloom and would've been his in case his mother hadn't been kicked out of the family. He kept it, but not for its sentimental value or anything but because it was a fine blade in itself._

_It wasn't long after that when he unofficially started working for Bookman as a hired assassin and jack of all trades._

_It truly seemed as though irony loved him._

-o0o-

Humming quietly to himself Tyki Mikk strolled down the busy streets of Tokyo, cutting through the masses as he went mostly against the flow, stopping only at the red-light by a pedestrian crossing, directing his eyes skyward. A smirk appeared on his face, widening into an extremely wide and a somewhat unnatural looking grin for a brief second.

"Got you."

-o0o-

Silver-gray eyes rested on the streets below, narrowing slightly as they made out the person who was just then crossing the road below.

Hands tightened their grip onto the chain link fence and he leaned forward, resting his forehead against it.

"Too late… It's already… too late."

-o0o-

…_**And so, the Shadow smiled, leaning forward and laying a hand on top of his head, ruffling through snow-white locks.**_

-o0o-

Before Kanda could even blink and much less do anything to stop it Allen was already on top of the fence, balancing dangerously close to the edge.

"You idiot!" Kanda shouted. "What are you-?"

The white-haired teen splayed his arms wide, kind of like a bird getting ready to take flight, leaning his head back slightly with eyes closed and his voice rang clear and steady in the cold winter air.

"_For every step that I've taken,_

_For all the things I have forsaken_

_For every beat that comes from my heart_

_For every hit I break apart_

_A path of carnage_

_Is all that's left for me_

_Since a destroyer_

_Is all I'll ever be"_

Kanda simply stared, not knowing why his body had suddenly frozen up on him, as Allen turned his head slightly, silver-gray eyes gazing at him while a serene smile played on a pair of pale lips.

"As all other Noah I am a destroyer through and through, even if the one who is being destroyed is myself," Allen said cheerfully and leaned forward, letting gravity do all the work for him as he plunged downward. "I'm sorry."

-o0o-

_**Author Announcement:**_ _The authoress you're looking for has jumped off an imaginary cliff screaming "Yaaay, cliffie!" and has presumably gone off to pursue other interests in real life, like eating breakfast and drinking a ridiculous amount of tea. Please __**review **__so that she can be rightfully dragged back and won't ignore this fic in favor of either her linguistics or her literature assignments?_


	17. Encore

-o0o-

**Encore**

-o0o-

_No one knew from whence he came but when he did come he came carrying loads of emotional baggage and what could best be described as a multiple personality disorder._

_He'd been about eight years of age, supposedly, as there was no real way of telling for sure._

_He came carrying no last name and with no recollection of any family or previous place of residence whatsoever and he wasn't featured in any missing child reports either and no one ever came looking for him at the temple he had on his own decided to take up residence in, even before the old man in charge had officially taken him in._

_He came in completely without a record, but with a mind like a trap and likely a photographic memory at that, although it was painfully clear to anyone that had actually met him that he held little or no interest in putting his intelligence to much use in the future as he in general seemed to prefer living simple and easy rather than exert himself in order to accomplish anything. The old man had labeled him a lazy good-for-nothing for that and he supposed that such an observation could be considered reasonably correct._

_He was Lavi, but at the same time he was also many others._

_He was Lavi, or LaVI, the lazy one._

_He was also Deak, the notoriously cryptic one._

_He was also Lav, the overly affectionate one._

_He was also Laiv, the lively one._

_Last but not least he was also Lai, the liar who had never once spoken a single word of truth._

_Essentially they were all him, just different versions of him that had been around for so long that all of them had forgotten who the real one was, if there had ever been a real one in the first place. The one mentioned in psychology books, the original personality which he had somehow displaced at some point._

_Since it had seemed like he had just turned up seemingly out of nowhere as if he'd been dropped from the sky itself, sharing the same body as four other "people", Lavi sometimes mused that it didn't matter if all others ignored him or despised him and that he didn't seem to have a purpose in the world as he'd created his own purpose instead, continuing to exist simply because of his own reasons to do so._

_Meeting Kanda Yu had been a turning point for him. A meeting, although insignificant in itself, had made him realize that there was so much more to life than to simply be acknowledged by others._

"_I acknowledge myself," he said, sitting in his usual spot in the cemetery. "That is enough."_

_A lone emerald eye watched as a flock of birds took flight from a tree nearby, sticking together and moving in swarm as they went elsewhere, looking for food or shelter for the night or just having been stirred up by something… He honestly didn't know which and with all due honesty he didn't care either._

_With practiced ease he snatched a black feather out of the air as it slowly floated downwards and he studied it with a keen eye to see if it was anything remotely special, anything remotely worth keeping or at least worthy of remembering._

_After a few moments he let it go, allowing it to continue its descent down to the ground where it landed right next to a newly placed bouquet of flowers, white lilies of all things._

_He leaned his head backwards, studying the sky yet again._

"_I'm so bored."_

-o0o-

Allen might've been suicidal but he was far from stupid; possessed instruments and psychotic family members aside he had always known, at least instinctively, that there was something beyond the usual, something absolutely extraordinary, about those that were taken into the Noah family.

Now, the wind rushing past him at a seemingly accelerating pace as he made his descent down below he could still feel something shift in his immediate surroundings and although he had his eyes closed and wind rushing past his ears he still heard it, the very distinct sound of wing beats drawing closer to him at an accelerating pace.

Suddenly he wasn't falling anymore, having come to a sudden stop as he was caught in a pair of arms that were somehow very familiar to him. His eyes snapped open, but he didn't stare at his "savior" with anything aching to surprise or shock, but rather in a deep sense of dismay.

"Tyki, I can't help but feel very disappointed in you."

Tyki said nothing until he'd somehow managed to latch himself onto a conveniently located corporate sign, still managing to keep a firm grip around Allen's waist as he did so, resting the black appendages that had somehow sprouted from his back.

"Your opinion has been duly noted," Tyki dryly replied, throwing a lazy glance at the assembling masses down there that were all pointing and shouting and taking pictures with their cameras and stuff. "Do you have any idea how much trouble we're in right now?"

Allen eyed the feathery appendages sprouting from the other's back.

"Well, I was trying to off myself in an absolutely spectacularly epic way and I would have succeeded had you just minded your own fucking business," he remarked, glancing up from whence he had fallen and spotting Kanda standing there, though the latter was too far away for him to see what kind of expression he was wearing. "So don't you dare blame this one on me, Tyki."

The older man, or whatever he was in reality, opened his mouth to say something but before he was able to say anything there was a loud voice cutting in on their conversation.

"Okay, CUT, CUT, CUT!"

They both looked up in surprise and turned their heads towards the sound of the voice, spotting Devitto standing in an open window in the building from across the street holding onto this big megaphone. Next to him stood an apparently furiously giggling Jasdero next to something which looked suspiciously much like a high-tech video camera strapped to a camera support.

"Okay!" Devitto shouted again, his voice amplified several times through the megaphone. "Tyki, you did a great job with the wing attachment; they looked pretty real on the collected footage so we won't have to edit anything out but the safety line..."

Allen and Tyki both exchanged a look of utter confusion. _What safety line?_

"And Allen, your performance still needs some work overall but in this shot you pretty much nailed it!" Devitto announced. "Am I right, Lulu?" he continued, indicating towards one of the lower rooftops where Lulubell stood with another video camera, flashing them a thumbs up although her facial expression was anything but joyful.

"Oooh, so they're shooting a movie," was the response from the people who'd assembled below and numerous fan girls, of Tyki mostly, squealed at how cool it was and that Tyki really fit the role of a fallen angel and so on.

Meanwhile, the unfortunate pair who'd up until that point been the main attraction simply stared at each other, confusion written on both of their faces until slowly a sense of realization started settling in.

"He made one of my suicide attempts into a public spectacle to promote his latest project?" Allen dryly remarked, a bit ticked off but by no means surprised. "Earl… if I wasn't already so head bent on offing myself then I would seriously find you and kill you in the most spectacular way possible…"

"That makes two of us," Tyki responded through grit teeth, feeling rather annoyed at the fact that his heroic coming to the rescue had been taken advantage of by the man.

-o0o-

_Kurozaia: Okay! Hands up anyone who actually saw this coming? No? Okay good, because neither did I (although I did know that it would be coming eventually it did kind of sneak up on me)… Anyways, my translations assignment is so far only about half-way finished and I also have a book to read, important keywords to pick out and analyze, linguistics to read, questions to assess and a job (or several) to apply to, so… Catch you later? ^^_

_Zaia: *rereads chapter and facepalms* You have got to be kidding me…_


End file.
